Letters to the Editor
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Ethics Reformed and When It Isn't
This reminds me of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, the congressional ethics reform legislation passed a few months back. I'm reminded because this is the sort of thing never included in ethics reform. We read about who pays for meals, drinks, airfare, golf trips, etc. We don't read how these are mere pennies relative to federal dollars for hurricane recovery (which always seem to end up in the pockets of only the well-connected) and lobbying dollars spent to direct "earmarks."
And the next time Republican candidates for office thunder about the need for tort reform, will they mention as evidence the labors of trial lawyers such as Lott's brother-in-law? Probably not--they'll be too focused on implementing the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act.
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I am reminded
of Senator Larry Craig sliding his Senate business card over to the cops and snapping something like "what do you think of this!"
We must remember, rank has its privileges. Did anyone actually think these guys have been fighting like mad dogs for political power just to waste it on us?
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Dear Tim Grieve ~
I hope you won't mind too much if the Op-Ed page of the Wall Street Journal links to this item.
You see, this was the reason why, when Lott committed that humorless gaffe at Strom Thurmond's birthday party, he found virtually no moral support in the Republican party. And why so many Republicans found relief in his no longer being the Senate Republican leader. And why not a single tear is now being shed at his departure.
We con only hope that Dickie Scruggs goes to a federal prison for a very, very, very long time. If he takes with him Lott, and Gene Taylor, and half the firm of Motley Ness, and every other member of that ilk, so much the better.
You just can't even hope to spin the Scruggs indictment into a partisan advantage for Democrats.
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Ok
So...everyone seems to be castigating Lott for retiring early and ASSUMING this has something to do with it.
Evidence anyone?
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Funny Comments
What a rabbit hole we're down where some assert Republican scandals actually reflect poorly on Democrats and others say "is that all you've got?"
New GOP motto:
"God, honor, country? Fuck 'em. We're Republicans."
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This is NOT a Republican scandal.
Isn't Dickie Scruggs an active supporter of John Edwards? Wasn't Scruggs' office one of a significant number of plaintiff-personal injury lawfirms who were found to have more or less laundered campaign donations to the Edwards/04 primary campaign?
What I do know is that his relationship with Dickie Scruggs made Lott a bit of a pariah in Republican circles, and that Lott's involvement in the lawsuit over Katrina property damage claims was little short of an embarassment to the party.
If anybody has any evidence of Republican Party support coming from Dickie Scruggs, or Republican Party initiatives conferring benefits on Dickie Scruggs, by all means fill us in. Just please distinguish personal donations/favors by and between Lott and Scruggs.
What any close analyis will find is that Dickie Scruggs enthusiastically supported Lot because, well, "they's kinfolk!" And that outside of that relationship, Dickie Scruggs was the same kind of Democratic Party whore that most personal injury lawyers are...
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I thought Republicans hated trial lawyers?
Because trail lawyers are the only thing that regular people can use to fight Republican corruption and greed.
Republican-owned corporations don't want to be held responsible when they harm you or your family, so they always use the Republican politicians they own to try to stop you from being able to get justice by pretending there's something wrong with trial lawyers and the entire system of civil justice. Otherwise you'd get their money. So Republicans always say they hate trial lawyers because of this.
Until the Republicans themselves need trial lawyers, apparently. That's a different story, of course. Because it's about their money again and that's the most important thing to any Republican.
Except for the ignorant, daddy-fixated, powerless creeps who ride the Republicans coattails in order to pretend they themselves have any worth -- no matter how much Republican plots and plans only hurt them in every way. They hate trial lawyers because their daddies told them to. Until they need them, too, I suppose.
Utterly pathetic all around.
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Cheating the Public is OK
It's another thing to cheat a big lying thieving Insurance company who gave millions to your party so they could get even more millions from the governmant.
I still hope the rumor of the boy toy is true......
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I've seen (today) those internet-based rumors about Trent Lott's having paid a male escort. The escort, who was originally alleged to be the source of the information, says it never happened. Never. Happened.
But again, Trent Lott's relationship to his brother-in-law Dickie Scruggs, and his lack of bona fides on a number of tort reform and insurance issues, and his crapola property-damage lawsuit, will make his going-away party in the Senate a happy one for many if not most Republicans.
And with Lott gone, and the liberal blogosphere having now so recently played the gay-sex-rumor card, there will be no end to the scrutiny of Hillary Clinton's sex life, with or without Huma Abedin. You compare the information supporting a bisexual Senator Clinton versus a bisexual Senator Lott, and it is staggeringly one-sided.
The "BlogActive" author, Mike Rogers, who hounded Larry Craig for months if not years, hasn't touched the Hillary Clinton story, as far as I know. (The kind of thing that Rogers might rightly say about Hillary is that "on a scale of 1 to 10 my gaydar tripped a 15.") But Rogers seems to have largely concluded that the Trent Lott/gay-sex story was b.s. Enquiring minds want to know...
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Nothing to do with Dickie
ThinkProgress.org has been following the Lott retirement pretty closely for the last couple of days and has a much more plausible theory: to wit, that Lott wants to go into the lobbying business with former Senator John Breaux of Louisiana. But if Lott waits till his term ends new Senate rules that forbid Senators from becoming lobbyists for two years after they leave the Senate would affect him whereas since he's leaving now they won't. TProg also mentions Dickie but doesn't tie his indictment to Lott's resignation.
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Clarification of earlier letter....
In case you got the impression from my earlier letter, "Nothing to do with Dickie," that there's nothing sleazy about Lott's retirement at this time, my apologies and please check out www.thinkprogress.org for the dirty details. Circumstantial evidence is strong that Lott is in violation of present Senate rules even as he's trying to skirt future ones...