As has been pointed out ad nauseum, Delay is going down. What hasn't been discussed much in all of our jubilant glee is that Dems are united and fighting hard to prevent rules changes and have basically shut down the House Ethics Committee:

Republican leaders had thought they had built a fortress against future trouble by changing House rules in January and by changing the House ethics committee's Republican membership in February to include members closer to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and DeLay. In one previously unreported example of the tight connections, Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Tex.), one of the committee's new members, was co-host of a 2002 fundraising breakfast to benefit the DeLay-founded political action committee that is now the subject of a grand jury investigation in Texas. The grand jury is looking into whether the PAC improperly used corporate funds to influence the outcome of state legislative races.

DeLay's legal defense fund received contributions from two of the new ethics committee members, Smith and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). The committee admonished DeLay three times last year. Republican leaders later sought the rule changes that made it more difficult to bring new ethics charges against Republicans.

Democratic leaders have introduced a resolution to repeal the rules and said they plan to try to force Republicans to publicly defend the changes at a time when the news media are reporting about DeLay's relationship with lobbyists now under criminal and congressional investigation.

The rule changes require at least one member of each party to support an investigation before it is begun. Under the old rules, if the chairman and top Democrat did not agree on what to do with a complaint within 45 days after it was determined to be valid, an investigative subcommittee was automatically created. Now, a complaint is automatically dismissed if the committee does not act within 45 days.

Democrats opened their protest Thursday, at the ethics committee's first meeting under its new leadership, by preventing the panel from organizing. The committee must adopt rules to function, and those were voted down by a 5 to 5 party-line vote, leaving the House with no mechanism for investigating or punishing members.

Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va.), the committee's top Democrat, said in a telephone interview yesterday that he will not release his freeze on committee action unless the House undoes the rule changes, and he said he has begun recruiting Republicans to back him. He said he may use a tactic known as a discharge petition, which could force a bill to the floor if enough Republicans back him.

"This will have to be resolved on the House floor," Mollohan said. "These rules undermine the ability of the committee to do its job. Republicans are not going to want to be part of impeding the work of the committee."

The ethics committee, formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, is the only panel split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, giving the minority party leverage it does not have anywhere else in the House.

Wowsa -- nice job!

Crossposted at Points West

How to make a conservative hooker-who-happens-to-be-gay fake reporter's American quilt?

Well, Soto is certainly giving it one hell of a shot. I've read so much of this in shotgun form that I haven't seen anyone quite piece together the chronology so adeptly and so effectively. Take this:

The 2000-2002 registered domains would not seem to form a whole, but to a certain type of older gay man, "conservativeguy" would be read differently from how many of us would read it. This can be seen as Phase I-A, all in some way related to Guckert's activities as a male escort.

The long lag time between the registration of conservativeguy in 2000 and all the variations on it in 2002 suggests to me that this handle had become valuable to him in some way. The addition of sites with the word "legal" must mean something. Something about his escort service activities was possibly becoming more organized and perhaps more lucrative. Then he jumps from plain "Jeff" to "Jeff Gannon." Call this Phase I-B.

SO, the question that arises in my mind, is who, who exactly -- and I highly suspect that there is more than one individual -- hired "conservativeguy" and then, based on that, ahem, connection, then parted the waters for him, and more importantly, why? Love? Blackmail? Pure Sex? Based on my own personal knowledge of my very own gay community, and based soley on my personal observations of rich, conservative, and powerful gay men in my lifetime, my absolute opinion is that this guy must have been passed around like the White House Hanky.

Gannon was the dirty little secret that the conservative closet cases loved to have in the room -- a nasty trophy, at places like the WH Correspondent's Annual Dinner. Must have been a real adrenalin for Bush's lavender mafia just having the guy so close -- but yet, so far, and oh so titillating. This is what I suppose must pass for romance in the closeted gay conservative halls of power. Of course he had to go by Jeff Gannon at this point -- all these guys knew him as Jeff Gannon. Read the rest of Hall of Mirrors Part 1 here. Right now, I'm running to read part two.

^Points West^ : where the bullsh*t meets the bone

It's interesting, you can't find one, not ONE quote from a Log Cabin Republican on GannonGate. Somebody threw down the gauntlet. I mean, they must have! Sheesh, it just seems that reporters must have asked some of them for their opinions, but nope they ain't talking. None of 'em. How's that for discipline? The closest I could find is Republican blogger Gay Patriot:

I hereby say that allowing Gannon access to the White House Press Room was stupid, sloppy and dangerous. Who knows who is responsible, or was asleep at the wheel. If all the blame lies with the Secret Service or other fail-safe measures, I'd like to know.

If in fact this was some Republican media plant in the White House, then this is very stupid and reckless and someone in the Bush White House should be held accountable.

Now, he also makes reference to the personal life of Gannon/Guckert, stating: "I agree with Jonah, this is a well-thought out position from the left that doesn't involve digging into someone's personal life and exploiting it."

You know, I'm sick of this! His photos, nude photos, were on websites! Websites he controlled! He posted them willingly! Give me a break -- my heart just bleeds for poor JohnJeff and his horrible loss of privacy! His 12-year niece or nephew could have found them! His personal life quit being personal the moment that he posted pictures on a commerical escort site -- period. End of story. It's not like we outed his vanilla dating profile at gay.com.

Points West : where the bullsh*t meets the bone

So, 60% of Americans want the Dems to be an opposition party -- my my, good news. But from the same WSJ/NBC Hart/McInturff poll there are some other interesting and little commented on numbers:

Dean, Pelosi, & Reid

So, how does Dean compare to the most important Dem party leaders in Congress, in an age when the Dems are trying to make a resurgence? Yikes, folks....

Howard Dean favorables:

Very Positive, Positive & Neutral: 56%

Nancy Pelosi favorables:

Very Positive, Positive & Neutral: 32%

Harry Reid favorables:

Very Positive, Positive & Neutral: 32%

24 point spread! No wonder he makes them nervous. Now mind you, their negs are very, very low, lower than Dean's. However, guess why....

Don't Know/No Opinion for Dean, Pelosi & Reid:

Pelosi: 52%

Reid: 60%

Dean: 17%

Can you believe this? Pelosi and Reid are basically unknown by a majority of Americans.

Fisrt, I'm gay. Second, I've been wondering aloud if Gannon/Guckert was gonna bring down a bunch of GOP closet cases with him. Is McLellan the first? 365Gay.com reports:

Raw Story, which has outed other anti-gay Republicans, said its source "reserved comment on whether McClellan was actually gay, but said he was frequently seen at gay clubs." It says that another source confirmed McClellan was a regular at gay clubs. McClellan is an Austin native.

"He was often seen in gay clubs in Austin, Texas and was comfortable being there," the source told Raw Story. "He's been seen in places that normal people who are looking for heterosexual relationships are not seen alone." [...]

Raw story also says there is a link between McClellan and the man who posed as a journalist and had been accredited by the White House. It reports that it has found the man claiming to be Jeff Gannon had sent McClellan a wedding card when the Bush aide married.

Gannon, who wrote for two conservative web publications, was exposed last week as J.D. Guckert. (story) The card to McClellan was apparently signed by Guckert.

McClellan also would regularly call on "Gannon" whenever the White House press corps would pummel him with hard questions.  "Gannon" could always be counted on to ask a frivolous question.

Oh boy, this just gets deeper and deeper -- who's next? Maybe a nice, juicy, red-state, right-wing, fire-and-brimstone closet-case Senator?

Crossposted at ^ Points West ^

I was reading about the State Party Blog Project over at MyDD and was thinking -- what's the California Dems blog like? I knew we weren't on the list, but little else.

Well, what a pleasant surprise: the blog is authored by none other than longtime Dem activist, strategist, and unaplogetic muckraker -- not to mention perhaps the modern master of poitical theatrics -- Bob Mulholland! He says this of Dean:

On Saturday, over 400 DNC members voted unanimously for Howard Dean to be the new Chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Dean was the Muhammad Ali in the field of seven candidates for Chair of DNC.

In the end, all six of Dean's opponents dropped out in favor of Dean.

As Chair, Dean will fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee

Nice. You know, I just feel safer knowing that Mulholland is in the driver's seat at the CA Dem blog -- talk about homeland security! Nice, very nice. As politics go, well, it's a warm blanky.

Crossposted at ^ Points West ^

UPDATE: The State Party Blog Project has actually...

withdraw[n] California from the state's which have a blog. Because "Bob's blog" doesn't really focus on two-way communication as a means for mobilizing California Democrats, we are going to push for something better. Hey! It wasn't my call--this is what the Californians who have emailed me have been saying.

I do see their point -- it is no a Dean for America direct action blog. Nonetheless, glad it's there. Could it become one? Perhaps. Maybe Bob's Blog could continue as is, and a direct action blog could be managed by issues and field staff -- so Bob, whatcha think?