The Supreme Court Hot Dog Stand, Con't

The Dobbs leaker is a total mystery, folks!

 

The Supreme Court on Thursday announced that it has been unable to identify the person who leaked an unpublished draft of an opinion indicating the court was poised to roll back abortion rights.

In an unsigned statement, the court said that all leads had been followed up and forensic analysis performed, but "the team has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence."

But the attached report suggested the court was not watertight, with some employees admitting they had talked to spouses about the draft opinion and how the justices had voted.

Supreme Court Marshal Gail Curley, who is in charge of the investigation, said that 97 court employees were interviewed and all denied being the leaker. She said it was unlikely the court's information technology systems were compromised.

The report indicated that the justices were not scrutinized as part of the investigation.

"No one confessed to publicly disclosing the document and none of the available forensic and other evidence provided a basis for identifying any individual as the source of the document," Curley wrote.

 

I guess we'll never know who took the decision from the hot dog stand.

 

 

Of course they're not going to ask Justice Alito or Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginny about this. That might produce an actual fuckin' suspect.

Some Unfortunate Cal On California Action

Wouldn't be an election cycle without at least one Democratic candidate blowing an important and winnable race, in 2018 it was Claire McCaskill, and in 2020 it's apparently going to be NC Senate candidate Cal Cunningham.

North Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham, a married father of two, sent text messages of a sexual nature to a woman who is not his wife, his campaign confirmed Friday night.

The text messages between Cunningham and Arlene Guzman Todd, a public relations strategist from California, were first reported Thursday night by NationalFile.com.

The report included pictures of the text messages, in which Cunningham and Guzman, who is also married according to the report, talked about kissing each other and more.

“Would make my day to roll over and kiss you about now,” said one text message from Cunningham.

In one text from Guzman, she says: “I have flexibility this month — done with school, training, big RFPs, etc. So the only thing I want on my to do list is you.”

The Cunningham campaign confirmed the authenticity of the text messages.

Cunningham, who has been leading in polling in his pivotal U.S. Senate race against Republican incumbent Thom Tillis, said Friday night that he is not dropping out of the race.

“I have hurt my family, disappointed my friends, and am deeply sorry. The first step in repairing those relationships is taking complete responsibility, which I do. I ask that my family’s privacy be respected in this personal matter,” Cunningham said in a statement sent to The News & Observer.

“I remain grateful and humbled by the ongoing support that North Carolinians have extended in this campaign, and in the remaining weeks before this election I will continue to work to earn the opportunity to fight for the people of our state.”

National File is a dirtbag right-wing nutjob site, but somebody handed them the goods and Cunningham is most likely going to lose now in a race he was ahead by 5-10 points.

If this ends up costing Democrats control of the Senate, well, now that's the point, isn't it? 

Pretty mild stuff frankly, but Dems get held to standards and Republicans don't, and that's all that it will take to put this race into a tailspin and maybe keep Mitch McConnell in charge of the Senate down the road.

Thom Tillis, the Republican senator that Cunningham is trying to beat, just tested positive for COVID thanks to Trump's superspreader event for Amy Coney Barrett at the White House last Saturday, so that may keep the Tillis campaign from being able to take full advantage of the huge opening they've just been given, but short of something really bad happening to Tillis as a result (or Trump!) this is going to be on every TV for the next 30 days in NC.

The other thing Cunningham has going for him is that NC's early voting has already taken off like a rocket and hundreds of thousands of votes have already been cast.

We'll see if it's enough to beat Tillis, but the larger problem is somebody sure as hell got a hold of Cunningham's phone messages and gave them to a right-wing tabloid political site, knowing full well the consequences.

The even larger problem remains though that Cal Cunningham showed very poor judgment, hurt his wife, and it could become a serious issue down the line for all of America escaping from the GOP.

Trump Faces The Storm

Anderson Cooper's 60 Minutes interview with Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who alleges an affair with Donald Trump and a forced non-disclosure agreement to keep the story of that affair out of the papers during the 2016 election, did not disappoint.

Anderson Cooper: For sitting here talking to me today you could be fined a million dollars I mean aren't you taking a big risk?

Stormy Daniels: I am.

Anderson Cooper: I guess I'm not 100% sure on why you're doing this.

Stormy Daniels: Because it was very important to me to be able to defend myself

Anderson Cooper: Is part of talking w-- wanting to set the record straight?

Stormy Daniels: 100%.

Anderson Cooper: Why does the record need to be set straight?

Stormy Daniels: Because people are just saying whatever they wanted to say about me, I was perfectly fine saying nothing at all, but I'm not okay with being made out to be a liar, or people thinking that I did this for money and people are like, "Oh, you're an opportunist. You're taking advantage of this. Yes, I'm getting more job offers now, but tell me one person who would turn down a job offer making more than they've been making, doing the same thing that they've always done?

Anderson Cooper: A lotta people are using you for a lotta different agendas.

Stormy Daniels: They're trying to. Like, oh, you know, Stormy Daniels comes out #MeToo. This is not a 'Me Too.' I was not a victim. I've never said I was a victim. I think trying to use me to-- to further someone else's agenda, does horrible damage to people who are true victims.

Stormy Daniels' real name is Stephanie Clifford. She's 39 years old, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and has been acting in, directing, and writing adult films for nearly 20 years. She was one of the most popular actresses in the adult industry when she was introduced to Mr. Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in July, 2006. She says he invited her to dinner, and she met him at his hotel suite.

Anderson Cooper: How was the conversation?

Stormy Daniels: Ummm (LAUGH) it started off-- all about him just talking about himself. And he's like-- "Have you seen my new magazine?

With Trump it's always about ego, never forget that.  Here's the part that should end his presidency:

According to Daniels, Mr. Trump called her the following month to say he'd not been able to get her a spot on Celebrity Apprentice. She says they never met again and only had sex in that first meeting in 2006. In May 2011, Daniels agreed to tell her story to a sister publication of In Touch magazine for $15,000 dollars. Two former employees of the magazine told us the story never ran because after the magazine called Mr. Trump seeking comment, his attorney Michael Cohen threatened to sue. Daniels says she was never paid, and says a few weeks later, she was threatened by a man who approached her in Las Vegas.

Stormy Daniels: I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter. T-- taking, you know, the seats facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, gettin' all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me, "Leave Trump alone. Forget the story." And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, "That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom." And then he was gone.

Anderson Cooper: You took it as a direct threat?

Stormy Daniels: Absolutely.

Stormy Daniels: I was rattled. I remember going into the workout class. And my hands are shaking so much, I was afraid I was gonna-- drop her.

Anderson Cooper: Did you ever see that person again?

Stormy Daniels: No. But I-- if I did, I would know it right away.

Anderson Cooper: You'd be able to-- you'd be able to recognize that person?

Stormy Daniels: 100%. Even now, all these years later. If he walked in this door right now, I would instantly know.

Anderson Cooper: Did you go to the police?

Stormy Daniels: No.

Anderson Cooper: Why?

Stormy Daniels: Because I was scared.

The only thing more consistent that Trump's feast of ego is the way he treats women.  They're not mutually exclusive things, either. 

Oh, and I bet she's been shown the picture of the man who threatened her in Las Vegas, and she and her lawyer know precisely who that individual is.  She wants Trump to know she's aware of that man's identity too, count on that.

On top of the moral implications, remember that John Edwards was indicted in 2011 for using campaign funds to pay off his mistress to keep silent about their affair during the 2008 campaign, and Edwards was acquitted on the one of the charges and a mistrial was declared for the rest.  His career is over in politics and as far as I know he's still a trial lawyer in NC.

There's a near 100% chance that Trump did the exact same thing as Edwards, Russia, money laundering, obstruction of justice or not.

Three People Outside Jefferson City, Missouri Con't.

Missouri GOP Gov. Eric Greitens has been caught up in a scandal over having an affair and allegedly tying up his mistress and taking pictures in order to blackmail her in an apparent revenge porn insurance policy.  The plan blew up in his face when the woman bravely came forward to tell her story, inspired by the #MeToo movement.  The state launched an investigation into the governor's conduct and calls for Greitens to resign were mostly ignored by both the Governor and state Republicans.

Now Greitens has been indicted on felony charges under Missouri law as the result of the investigation.

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who was swept into office in 2016 with a vow to clean up a corrupt state government, was indicted and booked Thursday on a felony invasion of privacy charge for allegedly taking and transmitting a non-consensual photo of his partly-nude lover shortly before that campaign started.

It stems from a scandal that broke last month, in which Greitens was accused of threatening his lover with the photo — an allegation that isn't mentioned in the indictment. Greitens has admitted having an extramarital affair, but has denied the rest.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner's office announced the indictment Thursday afternoon. A Post-Dispatch reporter saw Greitens being led down a hallway by several St. Louis city deputies on the first floor of the Carnahan Courthouse in downtown St. Louis at about 3:45 p.m. Officials later confirmed Greitens had been taken into custody and then booked at the St. Louis Justice Center.

Greitens, a Republican, declared his innocence in a written statement, and alleged the indictment is a "misguided political decision" by a "reckless liberal prosecutor." Gardner is a Democrat.

Greitens' legal team immediately filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, on grounds that any activity Greitens engaged in was "consensual."

Judge Rex M. Burlison allowed Greitens' release on a personal recognizance bond that permits him to travel freely throughout the United States. Greitens was scheduled to travel to Washington this weekend for an annual meeting of the nation’s governors. But Elena Waskey, spokesperson for the National Governors Association, said late Thursday that Greitens informed the organization that he would not be attending.

Online court records indicate Greitens is due back in court on March 16.

In recent weeks it appeared Greitens had weathered the worst of the scandal, but as news of the indictment spread Thursday, it became clear his political future is again in jeopardy.

A joint statement by top legislative Republicans, including Speaker of the House Todd Richardson, said they will appoint a group of legislators to investigate the charges: “We will carefully examine the facts contained in the indictment and answer the question as to whether or not the governor can lead our state while a felony case moves forward." Any impeachment proceedings would begin in the House.

Gardner, in her statement announcing the indictment, said the grand jury found probable cause to believe Greitens violated a Missouri statute that makes it a felony to transmit a non-consensual image showing nudity in a manner that allows access to that image via a computer.

"As I have stated before, it is essential for residents of the city of St. Louis and our state to have confidence in their leaders," Gardner said in the statement.

We'll see what happens.  Greitens was considered a rising star in the GOP, a charismatic, relatively young former Navy SEAL with no political experience, who publicly turned his back on the Democratic party and attacked President Obama after attending the 2008 Democratic National Convention and being recruited in 2010 to run against Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt as one of the promising young veterans that the Democrats were trying to recruit to win in the Midwest.

Greitens was carried into office by the MAGA movement getting a million and a half votes. Now?  People are a bit less happy with him, and once again the calls to resign are strong.  Couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy if you ask me.

He's been able to dodge calls to resign and remain in office so far, but a felony indictment is the kind of thing that ends a career in prison.

We'll see.

The Iceman Comey-eth

Former FBI Director James Comey skipped his prepared opening remarks that were released yesterday and went right into his professional opinion on the situation he found himself in with Donald Trump.  That opinion is that he believes the man in the Oval Office is a complete liar.

Comey said he was baffled and concerned by Trump’s assertion on television that he had fired the former FBI director because of the Russia investigation, as well as the initial excuse from the administration that Trump had fired Comey due to his botched handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. 

“That didn’t make any sense to me,” Comey said. “And although the law required no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple. And I am so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them, and I am so sorry that the American people were told them.” 

Comey is widely respected for his efforts to remain above the political fray. For a man in that position, these are simply incredible allegations. 

Comey went on to try to assure the American public that the FBI is a good organization that will remain independent, under Trump and after. 

The FBI’s “mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States,” Comey said. “I will deeply miss being part of that mission. But this organization and its mission will go on long beyond me and long beyond any particular administration.” 

He added, “I have a message before I close for my former colleagues of the FBI. But, first, I want the American people to know this truth: The FBI is honest. The FBI is strong. And the FBI is and always will be independent. And now to my former colleagues, if I may: I am so sorry that I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to you properly. It was the honor of my life to serve beside you, to be part of the FBI family, and I will miss it for the rest of my life. Thank you for standing watch, thank you for doing so much good for this country. Do that good as long as ever you can.”

It got significantly worse for the White House from there.

Former FBI director James B. Comey said Thursday he helped reveal details of his private conversations with President Trump because he thought doing so would spur the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the administration — a remarkable admission showing the degree of concern he had about both Russian interference with U.S. politics and his doubts about the Justice Department’s ability to probe such activity. 

Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey described how details of his private memos about his one-on-one conversations came to light shortly after his dismissal. 

“The president tweeted on Friday after I got fired that I’d better hope there are not tapes,” Comey said. He said he woke up on Monday thinking that if there are tapes, there might be corroboration of Comey’s account. Comey said he asked “a friend of mine to share” a memo he had written about his conversation with Trump “with a reporter.” 

Comey said the memo was one he had written about his Oval Office conversation with Trump in which the president had expressed a desire that the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn be dropped. 

He said the person he asked to share the information was “a good friend of mine” who is a professor at Columbia Law School. “I thought it might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.” 

Asked by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) why he felt he had the authority to do that, Comey replied: “As a private citizen, I felt free to share that. I thought it was very important to get it out.” 

Comey said he used someone else to share the information because he was worried, with reporters camped out at his home, that giving the information to a reporter directly “would be like feeding seagulls at the beach.’’

The friend is Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who confirmed his role but declined further comment. The reporter is Michael Schmidt of the New York Times, who declined to comment.

In other words, Comey leaked his own memos on purpose to stop Trump, because he knew that Trump was lying and attempting obstruction of justice.

After three hours, Comey entered into second,closed session testifying involving classified information.  At several points when asked about additional members of the Trump regime, mainly former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Comey deferred his answers to the closed session, which cannot be good for the prospects of either men.

Comey also said that in his professional opinion he was "sure" that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia involved obstruction of justice.  Comey did say at the time before his firing that Trump wasn't under investigation.  He all but confirmed that today Trump is facing such an investigation by Mueller, as is Flynn, Paul Manafort, and probably AG Jeff Sessions.

The Trump Regime is in trouble, and badly so.  Comey will help see to that. He flat-out said that he believed he was fired over the Russia investigation and Mike Flynn, period.  What Congress chooses to do with that information, and what voters choose to do as a result, we shall see.

The Beaver Goes Home, Con't

Last month we found out GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz wasn't too happy being chair of the House Oversight Committee when he didn't have Hillary Clinton as President to harass on a daily basis, so unhappy in fact he that he was not going to run in 2018.  But now that Chaffetz's job involves actually having to deal with Donald Trump's Russia connections, money laundering, obstruction of justice and you know, possible treason it seems that Chaffetz is now bailing completely and hanging it up at the end of next month.

The chairman of the House oversight and government reform committee, Jason Chaffetz, is leaving Congress on June 30, the Utah Republican announced Thursday. 

"As you know, after careful consideration and long discussion with my wife, Julie, we agree the time has come for us to move on from this part of our life," Chaffetz wrote in a letter posted on his social media. "This week I sent a letter to Governor (Gary) Herbert indicating my intention to resign from Congress effective June 30, 2017." 

Chaffetz said last month he was not running for reelection, and then later said he might not finish out his term. He's reportedly eying a position at Fox News after leaving the House.

Chaffetz is head of a committee that is the House's investigatory arm into the Executive Branch. He has started digging into President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey and the former director's memo saying Trump asked him to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. 

This week, Chaffetz sent a letter from FBI Director Andrew McCabe seeking all FBI notes and information on Comey's communications with Trump, and he announced a hearing next week where he's invited Comey to testify. 

There's no indication yet, however, that the former FBI director plans to attend -- and Chaffetz had trouble reaching Comey. 

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the panel, has repeatedly clashed with Chaffetz during several investigations, but told CNN that he was "going to miss him" and that he brought a "breath of fresh air" to the committee after it went through some tumultuous times under prior Republican leadership.

Funny how after subpoenaing Comey's memos earlier this week, Chaffetz is now heading home back to Utah and getting as far away from DC as he can.  A nice cushy job as a FOX News pundit seems like the perfect position for him.

My guess is that Chaffetz knows quite a bit about what's coming and doesn't have the guts to handle the coming storm.  He doesn't want to deal with Trump, and definitely doesn't want to deal with Trump voters either.  After all, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert might now want to run in 2018, and Chaffetz might want a career after 2017.  Who knows?

Either way, for Chaffetz to bail now is 100% suspicious...and 100% cowardly.  Never forget that when real government oversight was needed, Jason Chaffetz turned into a chickenshit and ran home.

Most Republicans are cowards though, so no surprise there.

The problem with that is this means our old friend Trey "Benghazi" Gowdy would be chair of the Oversight Committee again.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) could be the next chairman of the House Oversight Committee — if he wants the job. 

The popular South Carolina Republican and former Select Committee on Benghazi chairman has emerged as the front-runner to replace Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who made it official Thursday that he would resign from Congress on June 30.

Gowdy, a prominent leadership ally, has been racking up endorsements from colleagues on the Oversight panel and the influential Steering Committee, which will choose the next chairman. The 52-year-old former prosecutor is one of a handful of senior Oversight members who has been calling and texting Steering members about the gavel.

“If Trey runs, he’ll get it,” one Steering Committee member told The Hill.

But Gowdy’s office said the congressman has made no final decision about whether he’ll run. 

“Rep. Gowdy is talking to members in the conference about the qualities they believe are most important for the next Chairman to possess,” said Gowdy spokeswoman Amanda Gonzalez. 

At least two other Oversight members — Reps. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) and Steve Russell (R-Okla.) — have been reaching out to the 32-member Steering panel. 

The Oversight Committee is stacked with members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, and several of them said they favored former Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to be the next chairman.

But even Jordan conceded Thursday that it’d be an uphill battle for him to win the gavel given that the Steering group is largely comprised of loyalists to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Jordan had been one of the Freedom ringleaders who pressured then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to resign in 2015, making Jordan persona non grata to some GOP colleagues.

So Gowdy is the frontrunner, but he actually may not get the job.  We'll see.  Hell, who knows where this will all be when June 30 rolls around.

Double The Breaking, Double The News

Two massive stories breaking tonight, first, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel to investigate Trump's ties to Russia.

The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate possible collusion between President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign team and Russia.

The move followed rising demands for an independent probe of alleged Russian efforts to sway the outcome of November's presidential election in favor of Trump and against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Pressure has been building on Trump over the Russia issue since his firing last week of FBI chief James Comey, who had been leading a federal probe into the matter.

U.S. intelligence agencies said earlier this year that Russia interfered in the U.S. election.

"My decision (to appoint a special counsel) is not the finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted. I have made no such determination," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a statement.

"I determined that a special counsel is necessary in order for the American people to have full confidence in the outcome," he said.

This would be a massive story in its own right, but it gets even worse for the Republicans this evening as somebody in the GOP leaked a recording from June of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy telling other House leaders that he believed Putin was paying Trump off.

A month before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, one of his closest allies in Congress — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — made a politically explosive assertion in a private conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders: that Trump could be the beneficiary of payments from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016 exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthy’s assertion, and swore the Republicans present to secrecy.

Before the conversation, McCarthy and Ryan had emerged from separate talks at the U.S. Capitol with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who had described a Kremlin tactic of financing populist politicians to undercut Eastern European democratic institutions.

News had just broken the day before in The Washington Post that Russian government hackers had penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee, prompting McCarthy to shift the conversation from Russian meddling in Europe to events closer to home.

Swore them to secrecy...and one of them not only had recorded the conversation but gave it to the Washington Post.  And remember, this happened the day after the Russian hack of the DNC story broke.

More as it comes.

Bitter Home Alabama, Con't

Yesterday I talked about the link between embattled Alabama GOP Gov. Robert Bentley's impeachment scandal and the move by the staffer he was having an affair with to close drivers' license offices in predominately black counties in the state in order to make it harder to get voter IDs.  Bentley is in a lot of trouble, and now the impeachment proceedings against him will get underway starting this week.

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled on Saturday that impeachment proceedings against Governor Robert Bentley can start next week, halting a court order that had blocked hearings stemming from his relationship with a former aide.

Bentley, a 74-year-old Republican, has battled impeachment efforts over the last year and has defied calls from political leaders that he stand down.

The 7-0 decision by the high court allows impeachment proceedings to begin in the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee on Monday even as justices consider new filings in the case.

Bentley, who is in his second term, is accused of inappropriate use of state resources. His troubles began last year when recordings surfaced of him making suggestive remarks to a former adviser, Rebekah Mason, before his wife of 50 years filed for divorce in August 2015.

Bentley has denied having a physical affair with Mason, who is married. She resigned as questions about the pair's relationship began to dominate Alabama politics.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court stayed a temporary restraining order issued by a circuit court judge on Friday. The order had halted the impeachment process until hearings could be held on Bentley's claim that lawmakers did not give enough time to present an adequate defense.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Mike Jones hailed the decision, saying in a statement, "This is a great day for the Constitution of Alabama."

The Judiciary Committee will make a recommendation to the full House on whether to impeach Bentley.

Even Republicans want Bentley gone, and it seems difficult to imagine how he survives this now that it's gotten to the point of actual impeachment proceedings being led by his own party, when that party has supermajorities in both the state House and Senate.  If they wanted Bentley to stay, they could have made this vanish at any point.

We'll see where this goes.

Last Call For Hypocrisy General

Republicans really can't help being both crooked as a snake oil salesman and stupid enough to think they'll never get caught, so they're always shocked when they get busted.  Today's contestant: the GOP candidate for Arkansas Attorney General, Leslie Rutledge.

Officials have cancelled the voter registration of Arkansas candidate for Attorney General Leslie Rutledge (R) for being registered to vote in multiple places, according to the Blue Hog Report. 

The implications: "First, for the AG candidate of the party who likes to scream about voter fraud to be registered in two (or three) places at once is ironic and amusing on its own. However, the bigger implication is Article 19, section 3, of the Arkansas Constitution, which states: 'No persons shall be elected to, or appointed to fill a vacancy in, any office who does not possess the qualifications of an elector.'" 

"The qualifications of an elector" include this that the person must be "Lawfully registered to vote in the election."

Reminder: the only voter fraud out there seems to be perpetrated by Republican politicians registering to vote in multiple precincts.  But this time it may cost the GOP a election.  Here's hoping Rutledge's opponent, Democrat Nate Steel, can turn this into an easy win.

These Victims Are Professionals

GQ's interview with George Zimmerman and his family simply isn't as awful as you probably think it would be.  Instead it's much, much worse, as if the Bluths from Arrested Development met the Duck Dynasty clan on the set of The Sporanos. Writer Amanda Robb visited the "most hated family in America":

It was Grace, the little sister, who first grasped how all their lives were about to change. "We need to get guns!" she screamed when she saw the first news report pop up on her phone. The brief story didn't even have George's name—the shooter was still publicly unidentified—but that was no comfort. It was only a matter of time. 

The Zimmermans already owned a lot of guns—at least ten altogether, between Grace and her fiancé, her two brothers, and her parents. Still, Grace bought herself a new Taurus pistol. 

They had good reason to believe they might be in danger. Soon after Reuters published George's name on March 7, 2012, the New Black Panthers put out a $10,000 bounty for his "citizen's arrest." #Justice4Trayvon became a popular hashtag, and violent threats came in a flood. "All I can and will say I pray to God that your son geroge [sic]and Robert both choke on a sick dick and the mother and father both choke off a dick," someone posted on Bob and Gladys's website. "[I]t's not over we will have the last lol."
The family decided they could no longer stay put. George and Shellie holed up with a friend who was a federal air marshal, so they were reasonably safe. But for years, George's name had been on the deed to the house where his parents lived. Someone would find them. Bob worried about the large window that faced the street at the front of the house. "That's my mother-in-law's room," he said. Gladys's mother: 87 years old, Alzheimer's-afflicted. "I could just see somebody shooting into the bedroom or throwing a Molotov cocktail or something." 

Robert, who bears a strong resemblance to George, was seen as particularly vulnerable. At the time of the shooting, he was living in suburban Washington, D.C., and in March, shortly after his thirty-first birthday, he got a call from a special agent at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, who told him, Robert recalls, that "credible yet nonspecific" intelligence had identified him as a "target": "Anyone who wants to harm him will make no distinction between you because of the physical similarity. You need to go, and you need to go now." He left, joining the family on the run in Florida.

The Zimmermans believe to this day that they will never be free, that they are hunted by millions of angry liberals, and they are all completely paranoid and armed to the teeth and ready to shoot to kill in order to defend themselves.

Before I leave, we Skype with the rest of the family, minus George, who are all at home in Florida. The connection is choppy. Bob, Gladys, and Grace are in the kitchen, and all three of them look tired. Both of the family's lawsuits—their best hope at financial salvation—are going nowhere fast. A federal magistrate bounced the case against Roseanne Barr back to a state court. And a circuit-court judge just tossed out George's case against NBC. 

But that's not what they want to talk about today. They want me to understand that the world is aligned against them and that what sustains them is their closeness as a family. George texts all the time. He even called recently. He wanted to know the name of a recent pop song, one with a chorus that goes la la la. 

Bob tells me that George's big fear right now is that he'll be charged with federal civil rights violations for the Martin shooting. 

"He's worried," Bob says, "that if FBI agents come and kick in his door, he's probably gonna shoot a few of them."

The interview is comically awful, because the Zimmermans are awful people. The Zimmermans have family codes for situations.  They fear pretty much 90% of America is trying to kill George and that they'll have to spend decades living like a bored family full of former mobsters in exile.  Most of all they want you to know they have guns.  Lots and lots of guns.

Oh, and George is still being a "concerned citizen" out there in Florida.  But the family of course fears he's a little jumpy on the trigger.

Trayvon Martin could not be reached for comment.

The Rise And Fall Of Bob McDonnell

The Washington Post story of former Virginia GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen is a fascinating morality play on privilege and hubris, the both of them convicted last week on multiple felony counts relating to trading influence to nutritional supplement businessman Jonnie Williams in exchange for tens of thousands in cash and gifts.  His meteoric fall from 2016 hopeful to convicted felon represents everything wrong with today's GOP.

As McDonnell entered the last of his four years in office in 2013, things could not have been going better politically for the former state attorney general. Nationally, he had recently concluded a term as president of the Republican Governors Association, and he was increasingly being mentioned as contender for his party’s nomination for president in 2016. 

At home, polls showed McDonnell to be hugely popular as he prepared to steer his signature achievement through the state legislature: a bipartisan plan to improve the state’s crumbling transportation network. 

But unbeknown to McDonnell, the chain of events that would lead to last week’s guilty verdicts had already begun. 

Virginia State Police were quietly investigating allegations that Williams had paid $15,000 for catering at the 2011 wedding of one of the governor’s daughters. The governor had not disclosed the gift. 

The information came from the mansion’s former executive chef, Todd Schneider, who was fired in 2012 after he came under suspicion of stealing food. 

On Feb. 15, 2013, state police officers interviewed the first lady about Schneider, a session scheduled purportedly to help close out their investigation of the chef and send his case to a grand jury for charges. 

They asked Maureen McDonnell questions about the former mansion chef. But an officer also asked her about an unrelated topic: Williams, his wedding check and an additional $50,000 check made out to the first lady from a trust run by the businessman.

McDonnell lawyered up, and the rest is history.  The Washington Post broke the story last March and the whole dirty ball of twine began to unravel.  By April a grand jury had been convened, by July Jonnie Williams had agreed to turn state's evidence, and the rumors about McDonnell's resignation had begun.  By Christmas, the plea bargain of guilty for one count of lying to a bank in exchange for his resignation and disbarment as a lawyer was in the works.  Maureen McDonnell would have not been charged.

McDonnell rejected the deal insisting he wasn't guilty.

Last week a jury proved otherwise.  Enjoy prison, Bob.  Shoulda taken the deal.

Last Call For Uncle Jesse

Talk about your Labor Day weekend news dumps.

Mitch the Turtle's campaign manager, Jesse Benton, is resigning under a huge cloud of scandal.

Benton said he offered his resignation, effective Saturday, with a "heavy heart."

He maintained his innocence, faulting "inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors."

"This decision breaks my heart, but I know it is the right thing for Mitch, for Kentucky and for the country," Benton said.

Benton's name has surfaced in connection to a bribery scandal dating to his time as former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul's political director during the 2012 presidential election.

On Wednesday, former Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson pleaded guilty to accepting $73,000 from Paul's campaign in exchange for his endorsement and to obstruction of justice for lying about his involvement.

Sorenson's guilty plea included two sealed documents, which could threaten to involve Benton.

In a statement provided first to the Herald-Leader, Benton said there "is no more important cause for both Kentucky, my new home I have come to love, and our country than electing Mitch McConnell Majority Leader of the United States Senate."

"I believe this deep in my bones, and I would never allow anything or anyone to get in the way," Benton wrote. "That includes myself."

Ron Paul's campaign was crooked as hell, and Benton ran that show in 2012.  Now it's caught up to him and everyone is wondering just how corrupt and rotten Benton's campaign for McConnell is.  And frankly, for all the "McConnell is too shrewd a political operator to lose to a neophyte like Grimes" conventional wisdom, hiring Benton turned out to be his biggest mistake so far of a campaign filled with missteps.

Oh, and let's not forget Benton started out running Rand Paul's campaign in 2010.  You have to wonder about just how many bodies Benton knows are buried.  Odds are he put them there.

Now McConnell has to spend the rest of the campaign explaining why his campaign manager was a crook, and why he hired him in the first place.  Hell, it might be enough to sink his campaign.

We'll see.  But I feel a lot better about Alison Grimes's chances now.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/08/29/3402571_mitch-mcconnells-campaign-manager.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Walsh-ed Out Of The Service

That loud sucking sound you're hearing coming from the direction of Montana is actually not Brian Schweitzer's career going down the tubes, but that of his former Lt. Governor and appointed senator replacing Max Baucus, John Walsh.  Walsh it seems is a military man, only his 2007 master's thesis for the US Army War College appears to be massively plagiarized.

Democrats were thrilled when John Walsh of Montana was appointed to the United States Senate in February. A decorated veteran of the Iraq war and former adjutant general of his state’s National Guard, Mr. Walsh offered the Democratic Party something it frequently lacks: a seasoned military man. 

On the campaign trail this year, Mr. Walsh, 53, has made his military service a main selling point. Still wearing his hair close-cropped, he notes he was targeted for killing by Iraqi militants and says his time in uniform informs his views on a range of issues. 

But one of the highest-profile credentials of Mr. Walsh’s 33-year military career appears to have been improperly attained. An examination of the final paper required for Mr. Walsh’s master’s degree from the United States Army War College indicates the senator appropriated at least a quarter of his thesis on American Middle East policy from other authors’ works, with no attribution.

Oh, it gets worse.

Mr. Walsh completed the paper, what the War College calls a “strategy research project,” to earn his degree in 2007, when he was 46. The sources of the material he presents as his own include academic papers, policy journal essays and books that are almost all available online. 

Most strikingly, each of the six recommendations Mr. Walsh laid out at the conclusion of his 14-page paper, titled “The Case for Democracy as a Long Term National Strategy,” is taken nearly word-for-word without attribution from a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace document on the same topic. 

In his third recommendation, for example, Mr. Walsh writes: “Democracy promoters need to engage as much as possible in a dialogue with a wide cross section of influential elites: mainstream academics, journalists, moderate Islamists, and members of the professional associations who play a political role in some Arab countries, rather than only the narrow world of westernized democracy and human rights advocates.” 

The same exact sentence appears on the sixth page of a 2002 Carnegie paper written by four scholars at the research institute. In all, Mr. Walsh’s recommendations section runs to more than 800 words, nearly all of it taken verbatim from the Carnegie paper, without any footnote or reference to it. In addition, significant portions of the language in Mr. Walsh’s paper can be found in a 1998 essay by a scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, a research institute at Harvard.

So, yeah.  Walsh was in trouble, trailing Republican Steve Daines for Baucus's seat by around 12 points, he had even narrowed it to 7 points in the latest PPP poll out Monday, and as Talking Points Memo reminds us:

Senator Walsh released every single evaluation that he received during his 33-year military career, which shows an honorable and stellar record of service to protecting Montana and serving this country in Iraq.

Where this goes now is up to the people of Montana.

Another Governor Carter From Georgia Coming?

It looks like Georgia's burgeoning Democratic voters might be ready to put another Carter in the governor's chair, Jimmy's grandson Jason has a significant lead in the latest local polling there.

An exclusive Channel 2 Action News poll indicates if the election were held today, Georgia could have a new governor. 

The poll conducted by Landmark Communications on July 15 found Democratic challenger Jason Carter with a seven-point lead over Republican incumbent Gov. Nathan Deal. 

Carter received 48.7 percent in the poll and Deal received 41.3 percent. Libertarian Andew Hunt received 4 percent of the vote in the poll. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.

Andrew Hunt is definitely hurting Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, and that could very well mean Carter can pull this off.   And where Carter is winning?  African-American voters, and women.

The poll comes just after new developments in the ethics investigation into Deal, and it could have cost him support according to Channel 2 political analyst Bill Crane. 

“This is definite cause for pause and concern for a governor who probably a year ago didn’t have any serious Democrats who were running and now obviously are in a position to knock him out of his seat,” Crane told Channel 2’s Lori Geary. 

Deal has a nine-point lead in men but women support Carter by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.

Oh yes, did I mention yet another corrupt Republican governor is under investigation?

The Georgia governor's race was roiled this week by new revelations in a long-standing ethics investigation of the incumbent, Republican Nathan Deal. 

His opponent, State Sen. Jason Carter, a Democrat, says that a newly-revealed memo, in which the head of the state ethics commission claimed an attorney for Deal threatened her agency while it was investigating complaints against the governor, shows a "pattern of intimidation and interference on the part of the governor's office."

If that's true, and Deal's legal team is threatening investigators, Gov. Deal is a Done Deal.

Stay tuned.  Corrupt Republican governors are going to get tossed like trash in November.

Virginia's State Senate Flips Out

Just another day in state politics, folks.  Go about your business.

The Washington Post reports that Virginia state Sen. Phillip P. Puckett, a Democrat, “will announce his resignation Monday, effective immediately, paving the way to appoint his daughter to a judgeship and Puckett to the job of deputy director of the state tobacco commission.” Currently, the Virginia senate is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, with Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam holding the balance of power. If Puckett resigns, Republicans will gain control of the body for at least as long as it takes to elect a replacement.

The full details of this arrangement, including whether or not Puckett was explicitly offered the position as deputy director of the tobacco commission in return for his agreement to resign his senate seat, are not yet known. Although the executive director of the commission is appointed by the governor — who is currently Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe — the deputy director is appointed by the commission itself. Both the chair and the vice chair of the commission are Republicans.

Sure, that seems totally ethical and moral to bribe a politician.  It's what we do here in America.  Of course, the only thing that matters is if it's legal or not, but by the time that question gets answered, the damage to Virginia will be done.

In any event, the circumstances of this anticipated resignation — in which a Democratic senator throws control of the state legislature to the GOP, and then immediately receives a job from a commission controlled by a Republican chair and vice-chair — is suspicious. It also could have very serious consequences for Virginia’s least fortunate residents.

Gov. McAuliffe is currently embroiled in a fight with Republicans, who control the state house, over whether Virginia should accept Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. If Republicans take the state senate, even briefly, they can use their control over the entire legislature to pass a budget that does not include the Medicaid expansion. Though McAuliffe could veto the budget, Republicans could use that veto to try to blame him for an ensuing government shutdown.

So yes, this is how Republicans win the Virginia state Senate with the express goal of blocking health care for the state's poor people.  Either they die or go to another state, either way, problem solved, the GOP way!

Virginia's government is rapidly veering toward a shutdown if neither side budges from its Medicaid position before July 1. McAuliffe says an expansion must be part of the new budget, while Republicans have so far resisted his calls.

Virginia is one of 24 states that has not expanded the Medicaid program under the law known as Obamacare. McAuliffe campaigned on a promise to change that.

The state's Medicaid office estimates that as many as 400,000 Virginians would be eligible for Medicaid coverage under a possible expansion. According to a study from The Commonwealth Institute, a supporter of the expansion, more than 20,000 of those people could come from Puckett's district alone.

Oh well, not his problem anymore, he's resigning.  Oh, and by doing so, that clears the way for Puckett's daughter to get a cushy new judgeship.

Puckett’s daughter, Martha Puckett Ketron, is already on the bench in Southwest Virginia, serving as a Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court judge. Circuit Court judges in that region gave her a temporary appointment last year while the General Assembly was not in session. The House approved her appointment to a six-year term when it reconvened early this year, but the Senate declined to confirm her. The Senate has a policy against appointing the relatives of active legislators to the bench.

After the legislature concluded its regular session in February, the judges reappointed Ketron to serve until the legislature reconvenes. If Puckett resigns, the legislature plans to appoint her to a full six-year term. “It should pave the way for his daughter,” Kilgore said of Puckett’s resignation. “She’s a good judge. . . . I would say that he wanted to make sure his daughter kept her judgeship. A father’s going do that.”

So Puckett and his daughter get theirs, and all it will cost is health care for 400,000 poor Virginians.  What a great deal.

Shinseki Sacked, Sadly

This morning President Obama announced that he has accepted VA Secretary Eric Shinseki's resignation.  Shinseki will be replaced for now by Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson.  In the wake of Wednesday's devastating report on the issue, I don't see how Shinseki could have survived the firestorm anyway.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki has resigned amid widespread troubles in the VA health care system.

President Barack Obama says he accepted the resignation with "considerable regret." He and Shinseki met in the Oval Office on Friday morning.

Shinseki had faced mounting calls to step down from lawmakers in both parties.

Shinseki's resignation comes two days after a scathing internal report found broad and deep-seated problems in the sprawling health care system. The system provides care to about 6.5 million veterans annually.

I gave Alison Grimes a hard time about calling for Shinseki's head last week, but she's looking pretty shrewd right now.  I don't know if that's good or bad.

The report is pretty damning.

The report said 1,700 veterans using a Phoenix VA hospital were kept on unofficial wait lists, adding that “these veterans were and continue to be at risk of being forgotten or lost in Phoenix HCS’s convoluted scheduling process.”

Auditors determined that the hospital’s leadership “significantly understated the time new patients waited for their primary care appointment in their FY 2013 performance appraisal accomplishments, which is one of the factors considered for awards and salary increases.” 

Official VA data showed that 226 patients in a sampling from the Phoenix clinic had waited just 24 days on average for their first primary care appointments. But the inspector general’s office determined that those veterans had actually waited an average of 115 days. 

The unofficial wait lists may represent the “secret” list that whistleblowers claim the Phoenix clinic used to cover up treatment delays, according to the report.

In other words, this looks like a complete cover-up.  Yes, Republicans blocked the VA from getting the funding necessary to help correct this problem, but that doesn't absolve Shinseki's VA from lying about what was going on at the expense of veterans who needed health care, didn't get it, and suffered greatly because of it.

I'm hoping now that Shinseki is out of the way, that the problem can then be addressed.  A bill to fix the VA like the one Senate Democrats put forth in February will be tough to block.  I figure it'll just die a quiet death in the House instead.

Why would Republicans choose to fix a problem when they can do nothing and successfully blame Democrats for things not getting fixed?

That's been the story of the last six years, and it's worked for them to an extent.  But this is where Democrats need to make it clear that this was definitely a problem that Obama inherited from Bush.

But according to VA inspector general reports and other documents that have gone overlooked in the current firestorm, federal officials knew about the scheme at the heart of the scandal—falsifying VA records to cover up treatment delays—years before Obama became president. VA officials first learned of the problems in 2005, when George W. Bush was entering his second term, and the problems went unfixed for the duration of his presidency.

The underlying issues date back even further. In 1995, as part of a broader overhaul, the VA began pressing clinics to cut wait times for new patient appointments to 30 days. But there was no system for tracking which facilities were meeting this target until 2002, when the VA introduced electronic waiting lists to keep tabs on patients who couldn't be seen within a month. Managers who slashed wait times were given bonuses and other perks. This created an incentive to game the system, especially after veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars began flooding into VA clinics and straining their already stretched resources.

Got this?  Good.  Shinseki's head will probably roll because, hey, politics. But following that Democrats need to kick some Republican ass for this. These problems go back to 2005, and that means all the Republican efforts to block legislation to fix the problem since then are part of the problem as well.

And finally, it's important to remember that firing Shinseki won't do anything to fix the VA.

The fundamental problems at the VA are systemic and not individual, though some individuals undoubtedly did very bad things. In large organizations, it is systems that drive behavior. No one individual, even a cabinet secretary, can dictate systemic behavior to such a degree.

In the case of the disinformation about waiting times at VA hospitals, there was a system in place that set a standard that no wait time should be longer than 14 days. There was also an individual performance review system that would be affected positively with more money or promotions for meeting the standard, and negatively for missing the standard.

There were other systems in place regarding resources – personnel, facilities, financial, and computing systems – that apparently made it impossible to meet this lofty wait time standard. If you don’t have enough psychologists to treat veterans with PTSD, for example, it is impossible to make an appointment for them when no service is available. There may also have been sheer incompetence at some facilities, but it is important to eliminate the systemic problems before assuming incompetence or malfeasance.

Once again, Democrats in the Senate intended to pass legislation to do this.  41 GOP senators blocked it.

Even More Republican Sneak Attacks

The long, strange story of winger blogger Clayton Kelly, his scheme to try to damage Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran in June's primary in order to support Tea Party primary challenger state Sen Chris McDaniel, and the Cochran camp's bizarre two-week delay sitting on the story just got a whole lot more weird as more arrests have been made, including a top state Tea Party official.

Two more arrests have been made in connection with the photographing of U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran's (R-MS) wife, Rose, who is patient in a Madison County nursing home.

Mark Mayfield, a member of the board of directors for the Central Mississippi Tea Party, was arrested Thursday, according to the Clarion Ledger of Mississippi. The second suspect arrested has not been identified. 

Clayton Kelly was arrested Friday and faces felony charges of photographing or filming another without permission where there is expectation of privacy and exploitation of a vulnerable adult, which carries up to a 10-year sentence. Kelly wanted to use the photograph of Cochran's wife in an anti-Cochran video.

Kelly supports state Sen. Chris McDaniel, Cochran's tea party primary challenger. Mayfield appears to be a McDaniel supporter as well and, according to the Clarion Ledger's Sam Hall, contributed $500 to McDaniel and served as an active volunteer on his campaign. 

Authorities claim Kelly photographed Rose Cochran at St. Catherine's nursing home in Madison, where she is bedridden and suffering from progressive dementia. Kelly, a political blogger and McDaniel supporter, allegedly used the photo in a video he posted online.

Since of course McDaniel is a freedom-loving responsible adult and a stalwart conservative Republican, he's dumping the blame for all this on Cochran and the liberal media "victimizing" him.

Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) is pushing an open letter he sent to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) vowing not to engage either his campaign or the "liberal media in their absurd witch hunt." 

"No matter how many press releases your campaign puts out, I will simply not stoop to your level. Win or lose, I’d like to be able to wake up on June 4th and be proud of the primary campaign I ran on behalf of Mississippi," McDaniel wrote in the open letter to the incumbent senator, who McDaniel is challenging.

The letter, which the McDaniel campaign first released on Wednesday and has been sending out to supporters on Thursday, refers to criticism by the Cochran campaign toward McDaniel in response to pro-McDaniel blogger Clayton Thomas Kelly being arrested for photographing Cochran's bedridden wife at her nursing home for an anti-Cochran video. 

"Over the past several weeks, your campaign has resorted to shameful slander, even going so far as to call me a 'criminal' without a shred of evidence to back up these accusations," McDaniel also said in the open letter. 

"No doubt, many political campaigns resort to juvenile behavior when they are down in the polls, but this kind of slander goes beyond childish pranks. It is, frankly, an embarrassment to our great state. Mississippi deserves better than this."

It's all a plot by Thad Cochran working with Obama to smear me because ARGLE BARGLE CONSPIRACY TINFOIL I EAT MY OWN POO.

But odds are one of these clowns is going to end up a US senator in January.  Awesome.

More Republican Sneak Attacks

Well now, it seems that the ugly story about a right-wing blogger who snuck into the nursing home where Mississippi GOP Sen. Thad Cochran's wife was bedridden in order to try to create a scandal to favor Cochran's primary opponent, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, really did end up creating a real scandal.  Apparently, Cochran's people knew about the incident for two weeks before telling police.

Cochran’s campaign spokesman, Jordan Russell, told The Hill Monday that the campaign was made aware of a video allegedly taken by local political blogger Clayton Kelly of Cochran’s infirm wife on the day it was posted, April 26. He said the campaign conducted its own investigation of the video before alerting Cochran to it and deciding to bring it to an attorney.

Kelly, an apparent supporter of Cochran's GOP primary challenger state Sen. Chris McDaniel, was arrested Friday over the alleged taping, and the incident has roiled the bitter race two weeks from the election, as a new survey from a group backing McDaniel shows the race to be within the margin of error.

“We were made aware of [the video] that morning because people were emailing us saying, ‘Did you see this?’ ” Russell told The Hill. “We conducted our own review for a few days and then went to Sen. Cochran about it, and that was when the decision was made to turn it over to the attorneys.”

Russell said he wasn’t sure how long the campaign conducted its investigation, but the inquiry lasted anywhere from three days to a week before the campaign consulted Cochran’s attorney.

This smells as bad as the original story, if not worse, especially since Mississippi police are considering conspiracy charges against Clayton Kelly, the blogger in order to round up anyone who may have been part of this.

Kelly, who was arrested on Friday for breaking into the nursing home to photograph Rose Cochran, is being held in jail on a bond of $100,000 on charges related to the break-in, according to the Clarion-Ledger of Mississippi.

Officials for the Madison, Mississippi police department said they wanted to talk to other individuals who "who might have been part of a conspiracy" concerning the break-in, according to the Clarion-Ledger. Police, however, are refusing to comment any further on details of the investigation though.

Kelly, who supports Cochran primary challenger state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-MS), was arrested late Friday for the break-in. He has been charged with exploitation of a vulnerable adult after breaking into the St. Catherine's nursing home where Rose Cochran is located.

The McDaniel campaign, despite somewhat contradictory responses, has denied any direct connection to Kelly.

This entire thing smells like week-old fish.  Maybe Democrat Travis Childers has a shot in hell at this seat after all.

Last Call For Bridge To Nowhere

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, GOP Gov. Chris Christie is convinced that Bridgegate is over and that it will have no effect on his future political career, "zero", because "I didn't do anything".  That was Wednesday.  Today he's dealing with his former campaign manager confirming Christie knew about the lane closings well in advance.

Gov. Chris Christie’s former campaign manager says he told the governor about plans to close lanes on the George Washington Bridge in December, contradicting Christie’s claims he had no prior knowledge.

Bill Stepien, who lost his job in the scandal, contends he told Christie about the GWB traffic plans on Dec. 12, a day before the governor told reporters his staff didn’t know about them. Christie issued a public apology on Jan. 9, claiming he was lied to by members of his staff on the controversy. Stepien’s lawyer, Kevin Marino, blasted an internal investigation the governor ordered that concluded Stepien had misled Christie about the politically motivated September closures.

 Oops.

So he lied to reporters, lied to his staff, lied to New Jersey, and lied to America.  Any wonder that Christie's 2016 prospects are fading fast?   He's in fifth place now, behind Mike Huckabee of all people.

That bridge is collapsing.  Fast.

Last Call For The End Of The Bridge

And the other shoe drops:  if you want to know why Chris Christie is facing a grand jury over Bridgegate and why US attorneys are moving forward, it's because the aide behind the Port Authority scandal is now talking to the Feds.

The former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive who orchestrated the George Washington Bridge lane closures is cooperating with federal prosecutors investigating the scandal, Esquire reported on Monday.

According to Esquire's Scott Raab, sources close to the investigation say that David Wildstein has been cooperating with Paul Fishman, the U.S. attorney in New Jersey. Raab also reported that Fishman has increased the number of investigators working the case, and has been presenting evidence and witnesses to a grand jury. (On Friday, ABC News reported that Michael Drewniak, press secretary to Gov. Chris Christie (R), testified before the grand jury.)

Esquire isn't the only outlet to get word of Wildstein's interactions with prosecutors. On Sunday night, the website Main Justice reported that Wildstein “was camped at the U.S. Attorney’s office” in Newark last week meeting with prosecutors. In January, Wildstein's attorney, Alan Zegas, said that his client would talk if given "immunity from the relevant entities."

Main Justice also reported that Charlie McKenna, former chief counsel to Christie, met with federal investigators in mid-January. Christie announced on Dec. 19 that McKenna was leaving the chief counsel position to become CEO of the New Jersey Schools Development Authority (SDA), a position he was officially elected to by the SDA board of directors on Jan. 2. McKenna could not immediately be reached for comment by TPM on Monday.

So at this point multiple people are cooperating with the Feds to build a case to bring Christie down.  This has gone beyond the theoretical exercise of "what if" for 2016 and its associated punditry and into criminal proceedings against a sitting governor.

Chris Christie is in serious trouble, and he knows it.