Hello?? Is anyone here???

Yes... yes we are...

Rest assured everyone, we have not gone anywhere. For the past few days we have been A- taking time off to celebrate the arrival of 2006 with family and friends, and B- constantly toiling away in the “politics mine” to put together a Year-End Rewind… lot of stuff has happened in the 12 months of 2005, so bear with us as we shift through the slop and bring you the highly-charged, important, and occasionally funny side of politics.

We will (hopefully) be posting the rewind tomorrow (Tuesday).

Until then, take another gander at a “classic post” by yours truly…

Originally posted Monday, September 26, 2005

A Not so Exclusive Club...

Welcome to the club, Senator Frist...It's a big club, a (not so much anymore) exclusive club (Delay, Rove, etc.)But it's a club that is welcoming you with open arms…and daggers at the ready.The good Doctor is being accused of violating federal laws regarding his recent sale of stock in HCA Inc. (which just happens to be his family's hospital corporation). A nice snippet of the AP story is below in red…

Blind trusts are designed to keep an arm's-length distance between federalofficials and their investments, to avoid conflicts of interest. But documentsshow that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist knew quite a bit about his accounts from nearly two dozen letters from the trust administrators.

Frist, R-Tennessee, received regular updates of transfers of assets to his blind trusts and sales of assets. He also was able to initiate a stock saleof a hospital chain founded by his family with perfect timing. Shortly after thesale this summer, the stock price dived.

A possible presidential contender in 2008, Frist now faces dualinvestigations by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York andthe Securities and Exchange Commission into his stock sales.

The sale has raised questions about possible insider dealing. Frist aides confirmed Friday that the SEC was investigating. I am sure we can expect some inane statement from Frist’s people stating that since he received approval from the ethics committee, one can look at it not as a "blind" trust, but as a "legally blind" trust.

(News of Bill Frist's ethics troubles – you know, his well-timed dumping of family stock and subsequent probes by both the Justice Department and the SEC -- on top of his base-alienating stem-cell position shift has us wondering: At what point do Republicans pull the feeding tube from his presidential ambitions?)

Now, let’s be honest, only a complete and utter fool would do what Frist did; selling stock in a supposed blind trust, essentially getting his hand caught *in* the cookie jar while everyone was looking.

(Everyone sing: Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? – Bill did! – Not me! – Then Who?)

Now there is a question out there that I have seen on a few other political websites. Was Frist given bad advice by someone he has unconditional trust in? Think about it, no way is the man that stupid on his own. Yes, the man is a mental furball, but he is an educated mental furball and has some Common Sense (though I could be giving him WAY too much credit)

He knows the law and he knows the rules of the Senate.

Maybe he was set up??? And let’s be honest, that would make a very interesting theory. Maybe someone did talk him into being totally stupid long enough to expose himself to an investigation by the SEC and breach Senate ethics rules (but one has to ask, do those things even exist??? – Senate Ethics Rules. Sounds like an oxymoron to me – like jumbo-shrimp or bittersweet or free-love)

Even a theory that has no basis in realty has to be looked at (that explains the WMD-Iraq theory)

So let’s look at it. Who is the one guy that Frist listens to?

Easy: Karl Rove.

Maybe Karl is trying to clear the slate for the preferred neo-con candidates in 2008, meaning he’s trying to get rid of the nuisance candidates like Dr. Senator Frist (or is it Senator Dr. Frist??)

Somewhere in Mississippi, you have to wonder if Trent Lott is wearing a smile from ear to ear…

This rampant run of ethical lapses in DC is running amok. It’s a raging amok running, and it has no signs of slowing down. In fact, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) took a look at the most corrupt members of Congress that need to have an eye kept on them. The list?

• Rep. Roy Blunt – Republican, Missouri 7th
• Sen. Conrad Burns – Republican - Montana (Is his middle name Montgomery? As in C. Montgomery Burns.
• Rep. Bob Ney - Republican, Ohio 18t
• Rep. Tom Feeney – Republican, Florida 24th
• Rep. Richard W. Pombo – Republican, California 11th
• Rep. Maxine Waters – Democrat, California 35th
• Sen. Rick Santorum – Republican, Pennsylvania
• Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham – Republican, California 50th (1/2/06 update... I think we all know what happened to "Duke." Is this fate awaiting the others listed here? Only time will tell...)
• Rep. William J. Jefferson – Democrat, Louisiana 2nd
• Rep. Charles H. Taylor – Republican, North Carolina 11th
• Rep. Marilyn N. Musgrave – Republican, Colorado 4th
• Rep. Rick Renzi – Republican, Arizona 1st

I’ll forgo pointing out the obvious that all but two are Republicans (though I just did that by saying I wasn’t going to say that, didn’t I? Strange how things work out, isn’t it?) and just leave you, the reader with this thought:

“People say I steal. Well, all politicians steal.” – Huey P. Long