Sen. Stevens - Guilty!

The Hill

Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Senate Republican in history and patriarch of Alaska politics, was found guilty of all seven felony charges for making false statements.

Drill, Baby, Drill

Houston Chronicle

A "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" existed in the federal agency that handles royalty payments from oil companies, including sexual encounters between government employees and industry representatives, according to a memorandum released today.

The Interior Department's Inspector General, who has been investigating the U.S. Minerals Management Service's Royalty-In-Kind program, said government employees who were supposed to be regulating the oil companies were engaging in drug use and having sex with industry contacts.

Preznit bu$h adds another name to the pardon list

McClatchy

Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate and one of the chamber's most powerful members, was indicted Tuesday in Washington for failing to disclose more than $250,000 worth of gifts that he received from businessmen who were seeking his help on federal issues and projects.

Republicons on Housing

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry defended housing situations on Friday – both his own move to a $1.8 million lease home while the Governor's Mansion undergoes renovation and the two-year wait for assistance endured by 4,300 Texas families displaced by Hurricane Rita.

[snip]

A critical state audit report released this week showed that the state has spent only 2 percent of the half-billion dollars in federal aid given to help victims of the 2005 storm, which happened only weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana and Mississippi.

Thus far, only 13 families have been supplied mobile homes.

h/t scout prime

Republicon priorities

Throwing the poor under the yacht

SACRAMENTO -- Making good on a promise to trim the state budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger eliminated a $55-million program Friday that advocates say has helped thousands of mentally ill homeless people break the costly cycle of hospitalization, jails and street life.

[snip]

Among the cuts: $1.3 million to track hospital efforts to eliminate infections, which kill more than 7,000 Californians a year; $30 million for state parks; and $6 million to compel drug manufacturers to discount medicines for lower-income people.

[snip]

He [state Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento)] noted that despite the allegedly strapped conditions of the state, legislators managed to preserve a tax break for some purchasers of yachts, planes and recreational vehicles -- a measure that could cost the state as much as $45 million.

"A $45-million tax break for yacht owners stays in the budget," Steinberg said. "And a nationally recognized, incredibly effective program to end homelessness for those living with mental illness gets thrown under the bus."

McCain campaign one-ups Giuliani campaign

TMP

As I mentioned earlier today, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has a special talent for appointing people to key positions just before they are exposed in career-ending personal transgressions or major acts of criminal conduct, or both.

But don't count John McCain out of this race.

Only today, Florida state Representative Bob Allen (R), who is co-chairman of McCain's Florida campaign, was arrested in a Titusville park restroom on charges of solicitation after he approached a plain clothes police officer and offered to perform oral sex on the officer for $20.

It's conceiveable to me that with the recent news of McCain's flagging campaign this is actually an attempt on the part of the Arizona senator to up the ante on Giuliani. As you know it was only Monday night when Giuliani Southern regional campaign chair, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) admitted to soliciting prostitutes.