The Republican Culture Of Corruption Goes Way Beyond Just Trump And His Congressional Lackeys In Buffalo And San Diego

When Trump's first congressional endorser, Chris Collins (R-NY) was indicted on a long list of financial corruption charges, he was smart enough to announce the end of his reelection campaign. When Trump's second endorser, Drunken Hunter (R-CA) was indicted on a long list of financial corruption charges, he blamed everyone but himself and even lashed out at Paul Ryan for telling him to leave his committee positions, saying he never would. (He did the following day.)

On Tuesday, a Tulchin Research poll was released showing Hunter exactly tied, 46-46% with his progressive Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar. This, in a district where Obama never got even 40% of the vote and where Trump beat Hillary 54.6-39.6%. The PVI is R+11. Wednesday the San Diego Union-Tribune didn't; t make matters any easier for Hunter with a scathing report of a career in politics built on a foundation of mind-boggling corruption... and more. The 47-page indictment also talks about 5 "personal relationships" Hunter had with other women, relationships tied up with the stolen quarter million dollars he had tried to blame his wife for... until the stories about his mistresses started leaking. (Prosecutors told the defense that they have pictures of Hunter's indiscretions-- extramarital infidelities and excessive drinking, all paid for illegally with campaign funds.)

Speaking to the media, Hunter has called his prosecution a deep state witch hunt. He has both blamed his wife for any improper spending-- “she handled my finances”-- and admonished reporters to “leave my wife out of it” when asked about the case.

In all, the indictment alleges some 200 incidents in which Hunter and his wife misused political donations. Many of the purchases were recorded when the family bank account had little money on deposit or were overdrawn, records show.

...Throughout his political career, Hunter has presented himself to constituents as a Christian conservative and committed family man... Rebecca Bartel, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University who has been following the Hunter case, has another theory about why the scandal has yet to threaten Hunter’s re-election.

She said many white evangelical Christians are playing “the long game” and are willing to overlook personal indiscretions of elected leaders if they pass laws and appoint judges who are favorable to their core beliefs.

“It’s about putting different people on the Supreme Court,” Bartel said. “It’s about rewriting laws and recreating a kind of atmosphere where these individuals no longer feel like they are being persecuted.”

Paul Goren, who teaches political psychology and other courses at the University of Minnesota, said many voters overlook the personal behavior of elected officials because they support their positions on culture-war touchstones like abortion and same-sex marriage.

“It just blinds partisans to a lot of these indiscretions that lots of members of Congress are engaging in,” he said.

Yesterday the Kaiser Foundation released a late summer tracking poll that shows three in ten voters (33% of independent voters, 32% of Democratic voters, but just 25% of Republicans, who, apparently, still have a much greater tolerance for corruption than normal people) say corruption in Washington is the "most important" topic for 2018 candidates to discuss. THE most important topic! WOW! Anyone who would like to help Ammar Campa-Najjar replace Duncan Hunter so Hunter can spend some quality time in a detox facility before beginning a new-- non-public-- life, can click on the thermometer on the right, a thermometer for progressive candidates who have already won their primaries and, like Ammar, have been ignored and abandoned by the DCCC. Drunken Hunter had been an especially bad member of Congress-- in terms of policies and in terms of ethics. In helps define the term "corrupt conservative." There is every reason to believe that Ammar will be the opposite.

I'm surprised-- and happy-- to see that so many people are finally taking DC ethics so seriously. And people-- especially young people-- are sick of it... and seem to be planning to do something about it in November. This is the HeadCount.org anthem this cycle:

Where Trumpism And Pretend Christianity Meet-- A Danger To America

The Last Supper by Nancy Ohanian

This morning, the NY Times reported that "While Republicans have been bracing for months for a punishing election in November, they are increasingly alarmed that their losses may be even worse than feared because the midterm campaign appears destined to turn more on the behavior of the man in the White House than any other in decades... As much as gun control, immigration, the sweeping tax overhaul and other issues are mobilizing voters on the left and the right, the seamy sex allegations and Mr. Trump’s erratic style could end up alienating crucial blocs of suburban voters and politically moderate women who might be drawn to some Republican policies but find the president’s purported sex antics to be reprehensible."

Right after Stormy's 60 Minutes show-- with its 22 million eye-popping ratings-- Washington Post reporters Andrew Whitehead, Joseph Baker and Samuel Perry asked "Why are white Christians sticking so closely to Trump, despite these claims of sexual indiscretions? And why are religious individuals and groups that previously decried sexual impropriety among political leaders suddenly willing to give Trump a ‘mulligan’ on his infidelity?" They pointed to a Pew Research Poll from earlier this month about values. The poll shows that "Sizable shares of Americans say that those with views different from their own about how Donald Trump is handling his job as president also probably don’t share many of their other values and goals. Just over half (54%) of the public disapproves of the job Trump is doing, while fewer (39%) say they approve of his job performance... Among those who disapprove of Trump, 65% of self-identified Democrats say they don’t think those with a different view of Trump share their other values and goals... By 60%-34%, self-identified Republicans who approve of Trump say those with a different view of him probably do not share their other values and goals."

Among those who approve of the job Trump is doing as president, 51% say that those who feel differently about him probably do not share many of their other values and goals, while 44% say they probably do share their other values and goals.

Among those who disapprove of Trump-- the larger share of the overall public-- 56% say that those who approve of him probably do not share their other values and goals; fewer (39%) say that they probably do.

...Wide differences in views of Trump by educational attainment also persist. By 71% to 26%, those with a postgraduate degree disapprove more than approve of Trump’s performance. Similarly, nearly two-thirds of those with a bachelor’s degree (64%) disapprove.

By contrast, adults with a high school degree or less education are divided in their views: While 49% approve, about as many (46%) disapprove of Trump.

Among religious groups, white evangelical Protestants continue to be solidly supportive of the president’s job performance: 78% approve today, while just 18% disapprove. By comparison, white mainline Protestants are divided in their views on Trump, while black Protestants express overwhelming disapproval. A majority of Catholics disapprove of Trump’s job as president (57%), as do 68% of those who are religiously unaffiliated.

Back to Whitehead, Baker and Perry, but not to The Post, but to a sociology of religion podcast they did, Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election. "Why," they asked, "did Americans vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election? Social scientists have proposed a variety of explanations, including economic dissatisfaction, sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. The current study establishes that, independent of these influences, voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage. Data from a national probability sample of Americans surveyed soon after the 2016 election shows that greater adherence to Christian nationalist ideology was a robust predictor of voting for Trump, even after controlling for economic dissatisfaction, sexism, anti-black prejudice, anti-Muslim refugee attitudes, and anti-immigrant sentiment, as well as measures of religion, sociodemographics, and political identity more generally. These findings indicate that Christian nationalist ideology-- although correlated with a variety of class-based, sexist, racist, and ethnocentric views-- is not synonymous with, reducible to, or strictly epiphenomenal of such views. Rather, Christian nationalism operates as a unique and independent ideology that can influence political actions by calling forth a defense of mythological narratives about America’s distinctively Christian heritage and future." And of course, none this has anything whatsoever to do with Jesus Christ or his teachings.

While American “civil religion” and “Christian nationalism” are closely connected in that both present a narrative and origin myth that expresses purpose and unites those who adhere to it, there are important differences between the two. Civil religion, on the one hand, often refers to America’s covenantal relationship with a divine Creator who promises blessings for the nation for fulfilling its responsibility to defend liberty and justice. While vaguely connected to Christianity, appeals to civil religion rarely refer to Jesus Christ or other explicitly Christian symbols. Christian nationalism, however, draws its roots from “Old Testament” parallels between America and Israel, who was commanded to maintain cultural and blood purity, often through war, conquest, and separatism. Unlike civil religion, historical and contemporary appeals to Christian nationalism are often quite explicitly evangelical, and consequently, imply the exclusion of other religious faiths or cultures. Also paralleling Old Testament Israel, Christian nationalism is often linked with racialist sentiments, equating cultural purity with racial or ethnic exclusion.

Unlike civil religion, contemporary manifestations of Christian nationalism can be unmoored from traditional moral import, emphasizing only its notions of exclusion and apocalyptic war and conquest. Trump represents a prime example of this trend in that he is not traditionally religious or recognized (even by his supporters) to be of high moral character, facts which ultimately did little to dissuade his many religious supporters. In this way, the Christian nation myth can function as a symbolic boundary uniting both personally religious and irreligious members of conservative groups. In this respect Christian nationalism, while more common among white conservative Protestants, also provides a resilient and malleable set of symbols that is not beholden to any particular institution, affiliation, or moral tradition. This allows its influence to reach beyond the Christian traditions of its origins.

During his candidacy, Trump at times explicitly played to Christian nationalist sentiments by repeating the refrain that the United States is abdicating its Christian heritage; however, Trump’s appeals to Christian nationalism were typically overlooked in media coverage of the campaign, which focused more on whether a relatively nonpious candidate could win the vote of the Religious Right. For example, in a speech to a crowd at Liberty University on January 18, 2016, Trump infamously quoted a Bible verse as being from “two Corinthians” rather than the customary “second Corinthians.” News coverage of the event focused on whether this gaffe displaying lack of knowledge about the Bible would hurt Trump with religious voters. Overlooked was the fact that immediately following his faux pas, Trump successfully made a direct appeal to Christian nationalism:

But we are going to protect Christianity. And if you look what’s going on throughout the world, you look at Syria where they’re, if you’re Christian, they’re chopping off heads. You look at the different places, and Christianity, it’s under siege. I’m a Protestant. I’m very proud of it. Presbyterian to be exact. But I’m very proud of it, very, very proud of it. And we’ve gotta protect, because bad things are happening, very bad things are happening, and we don’t-- I don’t know what it is-- we don’t band together, maybe. Other religions, frankly, they’re banding together and they’re using it. And here we have, if you look at this country, it’s gotta be 70 percent, 75 percent, some people say even more, the power we have, somehow we have to unify. We have to band together... Our country has to do that around Christianity (applause).

Similarly, at a campaign stop at Oral Roberts University, Trump announced that “There is an assault on Christianity... There is an assault on everything we stand for, and we’re going to stop the assault.” Later that year, on August 11 in a meeting with evangelical pastors in Florida, Trump claimed:

You know that Christianity and everything we’re talking about today has had a very, very tough time. Very tough time…. We’re going to bring [Christianity] back because it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. They treated you like it was a bad thing, but it’s a great thing.

Similarly, to those gathered at Great Faith Ministries International on September 3, 2016, Trump said, “Now, in these hard times for our country, let us turn again to our Christian heritage to lift up the soul of our nation.” Finally, there were a number of instances where Trump used the Johnson Amendment restricting political speech by nonprofit organizations as a foil, claiming that the Amendment singled out Christians and trampled on their right to freedom of speech.

While Trump directly referenced the Christian nation myth periodically, his various supporters and endorsers also made the connection between voting for Trump and the United States as a Christian nation. This was especially prevalent among various conservative Christian leaders. Many times the connection was made by arguing that Hillary Clinton would make the United States godless and potentially lead to an apocalyptic future. Christian author and media personality Eric Metaxas claimed that “God will not hold us guiltless” if Clinton were elected instead of Trump. James Dobson, founder of the evangelical ministry Focus on the Family, wrote that “If Christians stay home because he [Trump] isn’t a better candidate, Hillary will run the world for perhaps eight years. The very thought of that haunts my nights and days.” In another interview Dobson highlighted the importance of the Supreme Court vacancy and how “unelected, unaccountable, and imperialistic judges have a history of imposing horrendous decisions on the nation. One decision that still plagues us is Roe v. Wade.” He went on to share how religious liberty, religious freedom, and all religious institutions in America would be under siege if Clinton were elected.

Trump’s Christian nationalist rhetoric also expressed a particular eschatology of America’s future, emphasizing how America was once a great nation, but had rapidly disintegrated under the influences of Barack Obama, terrorism, and illegal immigration. Trump’s promise was to restore America to its past glory, a point he made most clearly with his ubiquitous slogan emblazoned upon red hats. The catchphrase has even been refashioned into a Christian hymn.2 Those supporting Trump, like Sarah Palin in her endorsement speech at Oral Roberts University, also implicitly aligned with a Christian nationalist eschatology: “In this great awakening, you all who realize that, man, our country is going to hell in a handbasket under this tragic fundamental transformation of America that Obama had promised us, know what we need now is a fundamental restoration of America.” The 2016 election was repeatedly labeled as conservative Christians’ “last chance” for citizens to protect America’s religious heritage and win back a chance at securing a Christian future. As Trump told conservative Christian television host Pat Robertson, “If we don’t win this election, you’ll never see another Republican and you’ll have a whole different church structure … a whole different Supreme Court structure.” Pining for America’s distinctively Christian past and insecure about her Christian future, all fomented by Trump’s apocalyptic campaign rhetoric, we hypothesize that Americans adhering to Christian nationalist ideology were more likely to vote for Trump.

It is critical to clarify that we are hypothesizing that the influence of Christian nationalism on the 2016 Presidential election is distinct from, even as it is closely related to, other cultural factors influencing voting for Trump. Christian nationalism has been linked to attitudes opposing economic regulations, welfare, and affirmative action, as well as gender equality and gay rights. And even more research has demonstrated that Christian nationalism is a strong predictor of antipathy toward racial boundary crossing, non-white immigrants, and non-Christians, especially Muslims. Consistent with its earlier racialist connotations, Christian nationalism can serve as an ethno-nationalist symbolic boundary portraying nonwhites and Muslims as threatening cultural outsiders. Indeed, in light of the strong role that Islamophobia was shown to play in shoring up support for Trump, and because Islam is often framed as the antithesis of both Christian and American identities, we would expect Trump support, Christian nationalism, and Islamophobia to be closely related.

Despite these close connections with economic views, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, however, Christian nationalism is not synonymous with or reducible to any or all of these. Rather, Christian nationalism operates as a set of beliefs and ideals that seek the national preservation of a supposedly unique Christian identity. Voting for Donald Trump was for many Americans a Christian nationalist response to perceived threats to that identity. Stated more formally, we hypothesize that Christian nationalism will predict voting for Donald Trump even after these other important and interrelated factors have been held constant, as well as under empirical contexts that allow for the potential interplay between Christian nationalism and various forms of ethnic resentment.

If these fake Christians overlook Trump's violation of Biblical proscriptions and injunctions, does anyone think they care at all about his Regime's blatant violations of ethical rules? Yesterday Public Citizen filed 30 ethics complaints against the regime. Lisa Gilbert an officer of Public Citizen explained that “The bottom line is that neither Trump nor his administration take conflicts of interest and ethics seriously. 'Drain the swamp’ was far more campaign rhetoric than a commitment to ethics, and the widespread lack of compliance and enforcement of Trump’s ethics executive order shows that ethics do not matter in the Trump administration.”

A key provision of the ethics order prohibits former lobbyists from being appointed without a waiver to governmental positions that oversee the same specific issue area they lobbied within the past two years. In a report titled The Company We Keep, Public Citizen identified dozens of appointments throughout the Trump administration that appear to violate this rule and has sent letters to the respective designated agency ethics officers requesting that they investigate and explain 30 such lobbyist appointments.

“These 30 apparent violations of Trump’s own ethics rules are only the tip of the iceberg,” said Craig Holman, co-author of the report and lobbyist for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “We looked at only a quarter of all presidential appointees because records were not readily available at the time. I suspect the real number of potential violations is fourfold.”

About a week into his term, on a Saturday afternoon, Trump issued an ethics executive order designed to implement his campaign pledge to “drain the swamp.” The ethics order came as a surprise to many and borrowed some key provisions from President Barack Obama’s earlier ethics executive order. One such clause reads in part:

• “If I was a registered lobbyist within the 2 years before the date of my appointment, in addition to abiding by the limitations of paragraph 6, I will not for a period of 2 years after the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter on which I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment or participate in the specific issue area in which that matter falls.”

Public Citizen identified 36 lobbyists who have been appointed to positions that oversee the same specific issue areas they recently lobbied, with only six of those appointees having received publicly disclosed waivers from the ethics rule. Violations of Trump’s ethics rules by the remaining 30 former lobbyists would occur if they are in any way involved in influencing official actions on the matters that they had recently lobbied in the private sector and have not received a waiver.

Leave It To The DC Establishment To Screw Up Democratic Races Across The Country: Hawaii And Orange County

No reason to settle for crooked GOP-lite candidates in primaries when you have solid progressives like Laura Oatman and Kaniela Ing running

Many of the people who have ever even heard of Doug Chin just know him from the Rachel Maddow show where she celebrates anyone who hates Trump without ever giving any context. In Chin’s case she could have mentioned he was a conservative corporate lobbyist who was appointed-- not even properly vetted for or elected as-- Attorney General. That was common knowledge and Maddow’s researchers should have caught it. What was less easy to find was that he claimed there was an “oversight” after he was exposed for not reporting (hiding) money paid for lobbying for the private prison industry, which is very controversial in Hawaii. Most people who have followed Chin’s career know he kept that information private deliberately to prevent the state Senate from knowing that they were confirming a private prison lobbyist to be the Attorney General.

This has become an issue because Chin has repaid CCA, who paid him a great deal of money (over $100,000), by blocking release to the public of information on problems at the private prison. None of the money he accepted from CCA was disclosed before he was appointed and confirmed as Attorney General in January, 2015. He-- and his clients-- clearly broke state ethics rules by withholding reports of at least 4 payments until after he was confirmed. The shady lobbyist payments were the only amendments to his state filing. Last week a complaint was filed with the Hawaii State Ethics Commission.

Chin-- an opportunist and make-believe Democrat-- is now running for Congress and has said all along, quite adamantly just this week in fact, that he would not resign as Attorney General during the campaign. He seems to have changed his mind about that since the ethics complaint was filed.

Another crappy establishment candidate, this one in Orange County, California, is Hans Keirstead, even sillier to think of in Congress than Doug Chin. Hans was recruited by one faction of the clownish DCCC while another faction was recruiting Harley Rouda. Then both were recognized as conservatives by the New Dems, which endorsed them both. The DCCC was then left with 2 lousy candidates from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party running for Dana Rohrabacher’s seat. Fortunately, there’s a progressive in the race as well-- being studiously ignored by the DC Dems-- Laura Oatman. When the DCCC had their “Candidates Week” to introduce their pathetic conservative candidates to lobbyists, they sent invitations to Harley and Hans and thought no one would notice they had excluded Laura. I noticed-- but when I complained, the only answer I could get was that “everyone is invited,” typical of the DCCC as a lamer than lame excuse for sending two formal invitations and then claiming the third candidate was welcome if she found out about it and wanted to crash their little boys club.

Yes, I’ve told that story before but there’s a new aspect that I just read about. Keirstead, easily the lesser of the 2 New Dems, tried pulling the wool over CA-48 voters’ eyes by making up a cock’n’bull story that Steny Hoyer had promised him a committee chairmanship, an absurdity on it’s face, although we’ll never know what Hoyer actually told this fool. Keirstead keeps yapping like a dog about how he’s a scientist and how science needs a voice in Congress. How about we just pick honest scientists instead-- and not liars and manipulators trying to turn scientists into another lame identity group?

Democratic candidate Hans Keirstead faced a familiar question at a local party meeting [in Seal Beach] in November: What kind of committees could you sit on, and how would that benefit the district?

But his answer has caused some confusion.

The prominent cancer researcher and political newcomer said House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, a top member of leadership, told him he would like to give Keirstead an “early appointment” on the influential Appropriations Committee, and that leaders wanted to make him chairman of the Science, Space and Technology Committee.

It turns out that wasn’t the case. [Hans was lying his ass off to the people he expected to help make him a congressman.]

Hoyer’s office denied that the whip made such assertions.

“No, neither of those statements is remotely true,” the Maryland Democrat’s spokeswoman Katie Grant said in a statement .“The idea that Mr. Hoyer would promise a candidate either a chairmanship or a seat on Appropriations is preposterous.”

…“It’s not inspiring for me to become a freshman congressman and to be pushed around and told what to vote on by my party and have no power or control,” he said in a video recording of the meeting.

He described meeting with dozens of members of Congress, including top leaders like Hoyer.

“I have been honored, I have been just humbled by the fact that they want me to chair the Science Committee, which is actually no great compliment because it’s an embarrassment,” Keirstead said.

“So in a meeting that I had with Steny Hoyer, he said, ‘We would like to put you as chairman of the Science Committee, rejigger that thing, get it, get it working and get it up to scruff. But that’s not going to do you any favors in the short term. I’d also like to give you an early appointment onto Appropriations,’” Keirstead said.

…The House Democratic Caucus relies heavily on seniority when selecting committee chairmen. The Science, Space and Technology Committee, which has jurisdiction over research and development projects, has 16 Democrats on the panel, and most would be senior to Keirstead if he is elected.

Committee assignments are determined by the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee at the beginning of each Congress. Lawmakers can lobby for spots on desired panels, but determinations involve an array of factors including seniority, available openings, regional balance, and a lawmaker’s applicability to the committee’s issues.

The Appropriations Committee is one of the most powerful panels in Congress since it oversees government spending. It is also an exclusive committee for Democrats, meaning members on Appropriations do not serve on other panels.

Keirstead said at the November meeting that a seat on the committee would give him considerable sway over health care issues.

“I will be one of the most influential people in science, medicine and health care in this nation,” he said.

Keirstead also said the prospect of having influence, even as a first-term lawmaker, is one of the reasons he decided to run for Congress.

 Roll Call made one error in reporting. The writer reported that the Science Committee “has 16 Democrats on the panel, and most would be senior to Keirstead if he is elected.” Actually, every single one of them would be senior to Keirstead. The two most senior Democrats, chairwomen Eddie Bernie Johnson, and Zoe Lofgren, have no intention of giving up years of seniority so Hans can waltz into the chairmanship. I talked to another member (on condition of anonymity) who told me that Hans “sounds like a prima dona [with]… an inflated vision of his capacity… I wish guys like him would start on the town council or the state legislature and figure out how governing works… [and] how to work and play well with others… How do you think Johnson feels about that report in the press? If he’s even elected, I’m sure Don Beyer will teach him how to behave when EB puts him on the oversight subcommittee. He shouldn’t expect anything more relevant until he’s put in some service beyond self-service.”

And, yes, there’s an even worse candidate running in Rohrabacher’s district, another self funder from another district, Omar Siddiqui who was a Republican and now calls himself (openly) a “Reagan Democrat.” He lives in CA-39 but doesn’t want to run against Ed Royce because he likes him too much. Blue America is enthusiastic about Laura Oatman and if you’d like to help make sure that neither Hans nor Omar gets into Congress as Democrats, please consider clicking on the ActBlue California thermometer on the right and contributing what you can to Laura’s grassroots campaign. The fact that the DCCC is ignoring her efforts makes her an even more attractive candidate. Her Bernie-oriented platform is far more in line with what energized voters in Orange County are looking for than a plateful of GOP-lite garbage. Hans’ website is all about Hans-- not about Orange County voters and not about any issues at all. The guy’s a joker, a product of typical DCCC incompetence. One thing everyone can agree on-- DC has enough unethical players already without adding more sleaze bags like Doug Chin and Hans Keistead.

Here’s the truculent crackpot, caught live on CNN, who Laura Oatman will have to work to replace in November after she beats the conservative Democrats in the primary:



UPDATE: Corrupt AG Steps Down

As we predicted, ex-private prison and Wall Street lobbyist Doug Chin, Hawaii’s sleazy appointed Attorney General, quit his job just days after saying he wouldn’t. He says he quit so he could devote all his energy to his congressional race, but what really made him back away from his pledge to keep working? See above but, the short version is that he didn’t want voters to see him fighting charges that he has an ethics battle over shady dealings with private prison firm CCA and how he got confirmed. His last day is March 15.

In The Trump Era, Who Needs Ethics Rules?

Ro Khanna is holding PhRMA's feet to the fire in the House

Former Congressman Chaka Fattah started his 10 year prison sentence yesterday, after being convicted last June for fraud and bribery charges. Wednesday was a busy day for corrupt lawmakers. Nebraska's most heinous Republican state legislator, Senator Bill Kintner finally announced he is resigning... just as his colleagues were about to kick him out of the Senate. He called a press conference and told the media "To paraphrase Richard Nixon, you won't have Bill Kintner to kick around anymore." He had been fined for having cybersex on state-owned computers with various women. His response to that was to get on twitter and carry on about how the 2 million-plus women who participated in the anti-Trump marches last weekend are two ugly to be sexually assaulted.

Although his resignation doesn't go into effect until Monday, Jim Scheer, the Speaker of the legislature, asked him to stay off the floor and refrain from participating in any debates or votes.

Kintner is a longtime woman hater, having attracted attention in 2013 by responding to a non-political question in a newspaper about what the biggest mystery in the world is: "Women. No one understands them. They don't even understand themselves." But, of course-- as is often the case with right-wing bigots-- women aren't the only group he's disdainful of. Two years ago the Nebraska Latino American Commission condemned him for routinely using racist slurs against Hispanics during debates in the legislature.

In his resignation announcement he portrayed himself as a fighter for the far right crackpots who sent him to the legislature. "[A]s much as my heart says to fight," he said, "my head says it is time to step away from the Legislature... I hesitate to do so as I know my resignation will be hailed as a victory to the progressive and aggressive liberal movement. However, one of the most gifted leaders of all time was King Solomon in ancient Israel-- a man of many gifts and many challenges. In the Bible, King Solomon’s writing in the book of Ecclesiastes, sets forth that: 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to come together.'"



Our old friend Jane Kleeb is now the chairman of Nebraska's Democratic Party. Her statement must have driven Kintner out of his narrow mind: "The Women's March just took down their first politician. The Nebraska Democratic Party welcomes the resignation of Bill Kintner and looks forward to electing a candidate who stands up for women and working class families."

Unfortunately, the governor will appoint another Republican nitwit to the seat and there won't be an election to fill it until 2018.

Now let's skip over to Florida and check on what's up with another typical corrupt conservative 4th Judicial Circuit Mark Hulsey III, who just resigned rather than face an impeachment trial the following day. Like Kintner, Hulsey felt entitled to voice his ugly racist and misogynistic sentiments whenever they popped into his crazy right-wing head. The Jacksonville judge is best known for telling African Americans who came before his bench to get on a boat and go back to Africa.

A sample of the complaints from the Judicial Qualifications Commission reveals a minefield of issues.

“Among other comments: a. You referred to the prior lead Staff Attorney as a “bitch” and a “cunt." b. You have demeaned female Staff Attorneys by referring to them as like cheerleaders who talk during the national anthem. c. You berated a Staff Attorney who failed to remain in the courtroom while a jury was deliberating. During this capital trial, you required the Staff Attorney to provide you with basic information about capital trial procedures, and then, at the end of the two-week trial, you unfairly berated, and blamed the Staff Attorney for mistakes you made during the course of the trial,” the JQC alleged.

Grace-Marie Turner is a far right ideologue working furiously against healthcare. Tuesday, Diane Black (R-TN), one of Congress' most extremist Republicans and chair of the House Budget Committee, had her testify as the president of a crackpot anti-healthcare think tank, the so-called Galen Institute she stated 20 years ago to help the GOP undermine Medicare. Her "Institute" is almost entirely funded by Big PhRMA and she is the go-to lunatic for the Republicans when they want a witness to babble nonsense about preventing Congress from passing legislation that would give American consumers fair drug prices.

Tuesday's Budget Committee hearing was about repealing the Affordable Care Act. There are 22 Republicans on the committee and just 12 Democrats. It hasn't been seen as a likely place for much resistance. But last week, Pelosi appointed two freshman firecrackers to the committee, Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) and suddenly all bets are off. Watch Khanna go after Turner in the video up top. It's well known in DC that Turner is a highly paid lackey of the pharmaceutical industry and that she carries their water but she doesn't admit it publicly and the public isn't aware of it. Khanna wanted to make sure that her deceitful, misleading testimony is seen through those lenses. He asked her to disclose her Big PhRMA donors and admit how much she's taken from them in return for repeating their self-serving messages. She refused. "If you're giving testimony to the United States Congress," he reminded her, "the public should have a right to know what financial interests your organization has."

I asked Khanna about the hearing yesterday. He told me that "[b]y pursuing an aggressive line of questioning, I was hoping to inspire Democrats to be bold and fearless in speaking truth to power. We won't win by being polite or philosophical. We will win by taking on special interests and exposing the ulterior and financial motive of the dark forces in American politics. Let's learn from Sanders. Our party needs more young Turks willing to challenge the status quo and stand on conviction."

NEW LAW: CONGRESSIONAL WIVES MUST BEHAVE-- SONS AND DAUGHTERS? NOT SO MUCH

Crooked GOP Congressman John Doolittle and the crooked little Mrs.

Congress can't pass a law ex post facto in order to punish someone. If it wasn't a crime when they done it, there's nothing anyone can do. So, it's going to be very hard to go after Julie Doolittle, Gayle Sweeney, or Tom DeLay's moll wife, or the crooked wives of any number of Republicans whose wives served as their bag-ladies. That's because the House passed an ethics bill yesterday prohibiting congressmen to pay their wives for campaign work. Though few were as blatantly criminal as the Doolittles, almost 100 members of Congress were involved in what the new law forbids.

But even if people could be prosecuted ex post facto, two of the most corrupt members of Congress from the Bush years, Curt Weldon (R-PA) and Conrad Burns (R-MT)-- each ignominously defeated and swept out of public office after a series of corruption scandals-- would be safe. That's because each used their daughter to collect the bribes and enrich the family. The law is only about wives, not sons (see Denny Hastert Family) or daughters.