Oy.

The crap gets deeper by the Minute. and so far, it’s waist high… Oy.

The Story: It Wasn’t the Sex; Suspicious $$ Transfers Led to Spitzer – (via ABC News)

The federal investigation of a New York prostitution ring was triggered by Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s suspicious money transfers, initially leading agents to believe Spitzer was hiding bribes, according to federal officials.

It was only months later that the IRS and the FBI determined that Spitzer wasn’t hiding bribes but payments to a company called QAT, what prosecutors say is a prostitution operation operating under the name of the Emperors Club.

As recently as this past Valentine’s Day, Feb. 13, Spitzer, who officials say is identified in a federal complaint as "Client 9," arranged for a prostitute "Kristen" to meet him in Washington, D.C.

This crap is getting nuttier, by the minute. I’m sure the Kossaks are working on some sort of a conspiracy theory.

This dude basically was running around with a damn neon sign that read, "I’m picking up whores, bust me now!"

Wow…. All I can say, is wow….

Others: Talking Points Memo, Harper’s, TalkLeft, Little Green Footballs, Big Brass Blog, Taylor Marsh, Patterico’s Pontifications, PrairiePundit, LewRockwell.com Blog, Political Punch, Salon, skippy the bush kangaroo and Hot Air

From the "say what?" Dept.

Poll: Most Americans don’t read political blogs (via  Reuters)

A majority of Americans do not read political blogs, the online commentaries that have proliferated in the race for the U.S. presidency, according to a poll released on Monday.

Only 22 percent of people responding to the poll said they read blogs regularly, meaning several times a month or more, according to the survey conducted by Harris Interactive.

Political blogs, in which writers, pundits and other participants voice opinions in online forums, burst into the spotlight in the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns. Some of the most high-profile blogs are influential on campaign strategies, media coverage and public perception of the candidates and issues.

Unlike traditional, mainstream media, blogs often adopt a specific point of view. Critics complain they can contain unchecked facts, are poorly edited and use unreliable sources.

You don’t think them old, dead wood, media types don’t like us, do you? I dont knowHee hee

Can you say, Biased? I knew you could! Rolling EyesLoserTongue

You say, "Why would you say this?"

Well, it’s like this here, We’re a threat to their sacred little profession. Most of the time, they get their information from us.

We report the stuff that they can’t or won’t, due to fearing losing those ever coveted sponsors.

I know their strategy, "we’ll tell everyone, that no body reads them political blogs, and the everyone will stop writing." HARolling on the floor Little late for all that guys. Raised Eyebrow The Genie is out of the bottle now. They should have do this story, in….maybe, 2003?

Morons.

Others on this: HotAir

Gov. Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring

This is not good.

The Story: Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring (Via New York Times)

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation

The wiretap recording, made during an investigation of a prostitution ring called Emperors Club VIP, captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a room. The person briefed on the case identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9.

The governor learned that he had been implicated in the prostitution probe when a federal official contacted his staff last Friday, according to the person briefed on the case.

The governor informed his top aides Sunday night and this morning of his involvement. He canceled his public events today and scheduled an announcement for this afternoon after inquiries from the Times.

Of course, The right is screaming, "HA HA!" and "Hypocrite!" and the Left is basically hunkered down and not saying much. I think it’s sad and it will hurt the democrats. I only imagine the feelings of the people in New York. I know, I would be highly annoyed, if I knew my Governor was involved with something such as this.

It’s a sad thing, in more ways than one.

Of course, let us not forget the scandals of the Republicans under our current President.

This is all the rage in the Blogosphere. Here’s the listing of them all:

Mr. Spitzer, who was huddled with his top aides early this afternoon …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Marc Ambinder, Associated Press, The Corner, Ace of Spades HQ, MoJoBlog, Weekly Standard Blog, Megan McArdle, The XX Factor, The Fix, Matthew Yglesias, TigerHawk, The Jawa Report, Open Left, TalkLeft, The Agitator, michellemalkin.com, The New Republic, The Swamp, Little Green Footballs, The Carpetbagger Report, Trailhead, Gawker, Guardian Unlimited, Eschaton, American Street, JammieWearingFool, The Campaign Spot, JustOneMinute, Taylor Marsh, New York Post, TVNewser, Outside The Beltway, New York Magazine, Jonathan Martin’s Blogs, Real Clear Politics, The Strata-Sphere, QandO, The Raw Story, Telegraph, protein wisdom, StephenBainbridge.com, 2008 Democratic …, Top of the Ticket, AlterNet.org, NewsBusters.org, No More Mister Nice Blog, Emptywheel, Stop The ACLU, Wonkette, Gothamist, Political Machine, Don Surber, The Agonist, Shakesville, Hullabaloo, PrairiePundit, About.com US Politics and FP Passport (Via Memeornadum)

Democrats win Seat held by Rep. Dennis Hastert

Read about it here.

There is quite a bit that could be said about this. Many other Bloggers have already written much of it.

The writing is simply on the wall. I do not place the blame squarely on Bush himself. Because I am keenly aware of how things operate in Washington D.C., I know that the blame does not all go to him.

I blame the advisers who went to him, the ones who were the dye-in-the-wool Neo-Conservatives, who went to him and said, "We can change the shape of the middle east, by invading Iraq." He, of course, bought into that foolish mindset and the scramble for intelligence began and when they found a piece of questionable intelligence, they proceeded to cherry pick it, to suit their needs.

What followed was the quagmire that we are involved with now. This will end up costing this Nation for many years to come. Current cost estimates are at 3 trillion dollars.

Of course, this all did happen and it is not a nightmare, and at what cost? Conservatism is now in it’s death throws, Republicans are now the scourge of American, Obama is the new messiah for America and the Democrats will, most likely, hold the majority in the both houses of Congress.

America wants change and Obama and, somewhat, Hillary are offering that. But what kind of a change are they really going to bring?   What will we see? An end to a war, ended so fast that Iraq descends into chaos? Will we see Churches being closed because they dare to speak out against the Homosexual lifestyle? America’s tax system changed to force churches to pay income tax? Our civil liberties being taken away, the ability to set up a blog and criticize the government, taken away as a threat to national security?

Some of us have not forgotten the tragedy, which happened in Waco, Texas.  I often ask myself, if the liberals take the White House again, will there be more Waco’s? Will they be more Ruby Ridges? Will they be more out of control Government Police action?

I have always believed in balance in Government, the balance of two political parties, both checking one another and each preventing the other gaining total power in the houses of Government. However, what we are seeing now, with the Conservatives being chased to the fox holes, is possible throwing of our Government into a total liberal state, and quite frankly, that scares me to death. I believe in freedom, in all it’s forms, whether it be Speech, Religion, Expression, Press, or whatever else, and I am quite afraid that the Liberals do not believe in total freedom, oh they believe in freedom of speech, as long as it fits their political ideologies.

There are those who say that the Iraq War will bankrupt this Nation. I disagree, I believe that National Healthcare plan will bankrupt this Nation or at worst, place a bigger demand of foreign currency from China and other countries. This is totally eroding our Nation’s sovereignty, with each deposit that we take. 

It is going to be an interesting four years, after the liberals win Congress and the White House. I just have a sinking feeling that the United States is going to be stuck with buyers remorse, because many people are, to coin a phrase, "Betting the farm", on this new messiah, and I have sinking feeling that there is going to be this massive let down, when he gets in office and absolutely nothing changes. It is a grim outlook, but I am afraid it is the reality of the situation at hand.

Snort Worthy Story of the day….

D’oh! Doh

The Story: Local girl makes unexpected appearance in Hillary ad (Via KING5.com)

The Video:

Quote:

The political ad that sparked nationwide controversy turns out to have a surprising local connection.

One of the actors in the Hillary Clinton ad was shocked to see herself, especially because she’s a fierce supporter of Barack Obama.

The so-called "red-phone ad" was played all over the country and helped turn the tide for Hillary Clinton leading up to her big win in Ohio. The commercial suggested Barack Obama was too inexperienced to handle a national crisis.

But the young girl starring in the ad will actually be voting age next month and says she’s no fan of Hillary Clinton

I’d be willing to bet that someone in the Hillary camp is feeling about "that" high right now. LaughingRolling on the floor

Others: TPM Election Central, The Newshoggers, Spin Cycle, Comments from Left Field, Buckeye State Blog, Fox News, Wake up America, Ohio Daily Blog and THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS

NAFTA-Gate Continues…..

It’s worse than the energizer bunny.

It just keeps going and going and going…..

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton never gave Canada any secret assurances about the future of NAFTA such as those allegedly offered by Barack Obama’s campaign, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office said Friday.

With the NAFTA affair swirling over the U.S. election and Canadian officials skittish about saying anything else that might influence the race, it took the PMO two days to deliver the information.

After being asked whether Canadian officials asked for — or received — any briefings from a Clinton campaign representative outlining her plans on NAFTA, a spokeswoman for the prime minister offered a response Friday.

"The answer is no, they did not," said Harper spokeswoman Sandra Buckler

I think before this is over, someone is going to look like a huge idiot.

Others: The Moderate Voice, Taylor Marsh, Buck Naked Politics, Don Surber, QandO and Clive Crook 

Related Discussions @ Memeorandum

Not everyone in the Obama camp agrees with him on FISA and Telecoms

Interesting… 

Check it out

Quote:

In a new interview with National Journal magazine, an intelligence adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign broke with his candidate’s position opposing retroactive legal protection for telecommunications companies being sued for cooperating with a dubious U.S. government domestic surveillance program.

"I do believe strongly that [telecoms] should be granted that immunity," former CIA official John Brennan told National Journal reporter Shane Harris in the interview.  "They were told to [cooperate] by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context."

"I know people are concerned about that, but I do believe that’s the right thing to do," added Brennan, who is an intelligence and foreign policy adviser to Obama.

That wasn’t just a personal opinion, Brennan made clear to Harris. "My advice, to whoever is coming in [to the White House], is they need to spend some time learning, understanding what’s out there, identifying those key issues," including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, he said — the law at the heart of the immunity debate.

"They need to make sure they do their homework, and it’s not just going to be knee-jerk responses," Brennan said of the presidential hopefuls.

On one hand, this is good thing, he’s taking opinions from other people. On the other, what if he decides to agree with this guy and the President gets away with breaking the law?

Should be interesting.

Others: The Newshoggers, American Street, Weekly Standard, The American Mind and The Campaign Spot

Related Articles and such @ Memeorandum

The stupidity of the Obama/Clinton flap.

You know, I’ve always said this idiotic crap between Obama and Clinton was quite stupid.

Josh Marshall agrees:

Let me stipulate to one thing: if this were two Republicans squabbling, I’d be laughing my head off at the moment. And I can assure you a lot of them are.

The Clinton campaign has gotten so deep inside the Obama campaign’s collective head it just ain’t funny — or, depending on your political persuasion, it’s very funny.

Late Tuesday night I wrote that the upshot of the March 4th contests was that Clinton had beaten Obama up a bit and he hadn’t responded. She’d not only bloodied up his poll numbers a bit by throwing all sorts of stuff at him. She also showed that it wasn’t at all clear that Obama was enough of a fighter to stand up to this stuff or get back in her face. More than the delegate numbers, that was the challenge March 4th had left him with.

But since then she’s just been slapping this guy around like crazy. She’s on the offense every day, dictating the terms of the discussion and getting results.

This "monster" thing is a good case in point. That’s a pretty over-the-top thing for a key campaign advisor to say. But what it tells me more than that is that the Clinton campaign has these guys rattled really bad. Some of this is no doubt due to the fact that Power is a bit out of her element. She’s more from the academic/policy world than the political/policy world. But, again, rattled. The Clinton folks have been bashing Obama like crazy. Now they follow up by explicitly demanding that Obama fire one of his key foreign policy advisors and … how, long did it take? An hour? And she’s gone.

If boxing is our metaphor she’s got him cornered on the ropes on one side of the ring and she’s just landing punch after punch. And all he can manage are the defensive moves that her constant attacks dictate.

Well said.  I believe before it’s over with, whomever comes out on top, there’s going to be bad blood on either side. That’s not a good thing. It could hurt the Democrats in November.

Others on this: Comments from Left Field, Cogitamus and TalkLeft

Related Discussions via Memeorandum

Will someone please tell Hart Coulter to shut up?

Um…. Didn’t Karl Rove say NOT to do this?

The Video:

Transcript:

From the 3 p.m. ET hour of the March 6 edition of MSNBC Live:

COULTER: I don’t think — I must say, I tend not to think that the Democrats are gonna need my help. I mean, it looks to me as if it’s going to be Bob Dole redux. I mean, terrorism does throw things off this year, but if you assume, as I tend to, that this is going to be a Democrat year, the choice is between B. Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton. And I do think Hillary Clinton would be tougher with the terrorists. I think she’d probably be worse on domestic policy, but right now, the war on terrorism has me more concerned.

ROBACH: And you say, "B. Hussein Obama."

COULTER: Yes.

ROBACH: Why don’t you like to say "Barack Obama"?

COULTER: Because I think it’s funny. I mean, it wouldn’t be — this hysteria from the Democrats about how you can’t call him by his middle name. Well, we’re calling him by his middle name precisely because it makes Democrats hysterical. Of course there’s a reason we call him that.

ROBACH: All right. And it’s interesting you bring up obviously the war on terror, because I was just actually reviewing your YouTube moment with Sean Hannity.

I included this clip because, I want you to see the mentality of the far right. They think this is funny. I will say this, as a Right of Center type of a person, that this sort of thing. Will do absolutely nothing, but alienate the majority of Americans.

Of course, people like Ann Coulter aren’t exactly known for their overreaching brilliance. Rolling Eyes