Just A Quickie

...on the Bob Menendez thing.

I think it's a bit suspicious that Menendez suddenly has another "corruption problem" pop up just as Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell are getting fried for actually and obviously being corrupt.

I'm not saying it's not possible for Menendez to be less than a perfectly straight shooter - there's a fair probability that he's at least a little crooked, cuz a) he's a politician and b) he's a New Jersey politician.  It's just that the timing seems a little too coincidental, and after the bullshit allegations about him and Dominican hookers, this new stuff has to be seen through very skeptical filters.

But here's the real kicker.  This is a tweet from Brad Dayspring, Repub Nat'l Senatorial Committee:

"one man’s allegations are another man’s evidence."

As long as that other man's a booger-eatin' moron - which is what the GOP Brain Trust thinks we all are.  Unfortunately, they're right when it comes to about 25% of us.

It Occurs To Me

Semi-Wow

Bob McDonnell's term as Virignia's Governor ended a week and a half ago, and today a federal grand jury handed down a big stack of indictments for Vaginal Bob and Lady McBarbie.

I'd like to say yay, but two things keep popping into my head.  First, I'm not convinced anybody will really care now.  I believe the thinking will be "gee, isn't he's gone now?" and "lookee there - the system worked - he got voted outa office" and "the Dems won the election - all they wanna do is punish the guy for being a Republican".

And second - that kind of thinking is why these things need to happen while a prick like McDonnell is still in office.  The whole thing almost got negotiated away - "in the interest of what's good for The Commonwealth".  Amazing just how chummy these assholes think they are with "us folks" once it becomes clear they've been fuckin' us with our pants on.

The announcement of the indictments was postponed, and the reasoning we got was so it wouldn't disrupt the elections last fall.  Fuck that shit.  Maybe disruption is what we need.  Maybe voters need to get shook up.  Maybe politicians and pollsters and image consultants and spinmeisters and party operatives - the whole political industry in general needs a collective kick in the nuts.

Taken together, the charges, if they resulted in convictions and maximum sentences, could produce fines in excess of $1 million and put the McDonnells behind bars for decades.

The indictment caps a stunning fall from political grace for the former governor, whose term ended Jan. 11. His tenure produced budget surpluses, restoration of voting rights to a record number of former felons and a landmark transportation funding package, before it was consumed by scandal in his final nine months in office.

I'll bet dollars to dingleberries there were people in positions of power who knew about all this crap a good 2 years ago, when they started vetting McDonnell for 2012 Veep.  None of this came as any kind of surprise to anybody anywhere near shoutin' distance of either party.  But they all kept it cool.  They all started calculating what they might be able to get out of it for themselves and for their own organizations.

Hey, guys - ya wanna know why so many of us get stuck in the Centrist Trap?  Would it interest you at all to learn why we fall for "Both sides do it"?

One side pulls some shit and the other side suddenly goes deaf dumb and blind.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over

I'm gone for a lousy two-and-a-half days, and the governor of Virginia magically morphs from Ol' Vaginal Bob to a cartoon version of Juan Peron!?!  (Actually, at least Evita had a kind of charm and a feel for real people, which is apparently totally lacking in Maureen McDonnell)

Bob and Maureen are the models of behavior that the vast rightwing conspiracy wanted us to believe Bill and Hillary were 15 years ago.

And you know it's bad when they call this guy in for a chat:

High-powered Washington lawyer Emmet T. Flood was in Richmond at the Executive Mansion Tuesday to speak with McDonnell, administration officials and others as the governor attempts to navigate the legal and political waters that have engulfed the last year of his term and threaten to swamp his legacy.

Flood’s presence underscores the gravity of the governor’s legal challenges.

I don't like throwing around phrases like Crooked Politicians, but we've evolved a 'system' that seems to breed exactly the kind of High-Polish Asshole that we were supposed to be trying to prevent from holding power in the first place.  This McDonnell guy and his cronies are close to becoming caricatures of themselves.

And finally, the feeling I get from somebody like Maureen McDonnell is that she thinks we all owe her something in exchange for her being willing to stoop so low as to be of service to the people of Virginia.  Her air of entitlement makes my eyes water and stings in my nostrils.

Let's check in with Doc Maddow for some help knitting it all together:

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