Ladies and Gentlemen, this might be the GOP scandal of the year:

It looks like John Ensign’s sexual dignity — which hasn’t been high lately — has plunged to new depths. His lawyer has just released a remarkable statement saying that Ensign’s parents paid the Hamptons $96,000 after he told them about the affair.

From the statement:

In April 2008, Senator John Ensign’s parents each made gifts to Doug Hampton, Cindy Hampton, and two of their children in the form of a check totaling $96,000. Each gift was limited to $12,000. The payments were made as gifts, accepted as gifts and complied with tax rules governing gifts.

Structuring anyone?

Ensign Still Bringing Dirty Laundry to be Washed [TPM]

I just hope to God Rahm Emanuel isn’t using taxpayer money to come after Alaska.

That’s Palin spokeslady Meg Stapleton, basically saying that Rahm Emanuel, and by extension, his community organizing friends, are responsible for Sarah Palin’s need to quit everything. Of course, she doesn’t realize that if Emanuel had actually “come after Alaska” (Sarah Palin is Alaska!) then she would be found at the bottom of her fishing lake, shot in a grizzly hunting “accident”, or smashed to pieces after the brakes were cut on her snowmobile. Rahm doesn’t bother with silly ethics complaints, because if he wanted to, he could fuck you up until you’re dead, for real.

Meg also said that they’re going after her because she “represents the biggest threat to Obama.” Because yes, despite the fact that the election is three and a half years away and Obama needs to deal with the economy, health care, the gays, the Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Silvio Berlusconi first, he’s really the most worried about a half-literate two year governor whose biggest accomplishments have been having a special needs baby and becoming a grandmother in her early 40s.
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It seems my concern that the John Ensign sex scandal would fade into the background was misplaced:

Doug Hampton spoke publicly for the first time today about the affair his wife had with Sen. John Ensign, saying the Nevada Republican continued his pursuit even after intermediaries tried to get him to stop.

Hampton said that Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and others urged him to end the affair and help the Hamptons pay off their home and move to Colorado. But Ensign was so infatuated that he continued, Hampton said.

You can watch the first installment of Hampton’s interview here – it’s positively cringe-inducing. Among other things,  we learn that the estimable Senator Coburn made Ensign send a letter to Cindy, the object of his affection, telling her that their invisible sky god didn’t approve of them having sexytime. Unfortunately, Ensign was  back fucking her the next day – he even called her and told her the letter was coming and to ignore it.

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Something’s not making sense.

Which isn’t news when it comes to Sarah Palin, but bear us out.

Talibunny’s minions claim she owes more than $600,000 in personal legal expenses. But back on June 21, the Alaska Daily News reported that a “conservative Web site” boasted of covering $100,000 of that in a week.

Leaving $500,000. And presuming absolutely nothing else was raised since April 24, when the “Alaska Fund Trust” was announced, including coverage in the Wall Street Journal. (SarahPAC, her other joint, doesn’t raise money for legal debts.)

Donations to the Trust are limited to $150, for reasons the organizers won’t explain, but by happy coincidence matches the Alaska cutoff for 30-day gift disclosures. Trustees promise to release a full list of donors in August, although legally the fund is free of official oversight.

So let’s do some math.

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Watertiger:

One of Sully’s readers draws our attention to the Q’s of Time’s Q&A with Sarah Palin…

• I wanted to start out somewhat philosophically: Did you feel that the institution of government was no longer the best way to bring change about?
• Is that because you feel you don’t have a mandate anymore?
• When you resigned from the AOGCC [Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission], that was a huge catapult for you. Do you think this might catapult you as well? Or do you see it as kind of a selfless move, more for the state than for you?

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Did you know that everyone’s favorite metaphor for the self-destruction of the Republican party, Sarah Palin, isn’t exactly tops when it comes to finishing things she started? You probably suspected as much when she quit the governorship last week, explaining that doing anything else would mean she was a quitter (Huh?!?! WTF?!?!?) But yeah, Palin has a habit of leaving the crayons all over the playroom table without finishing her picture and leaving it to the other kids to clean up her mess.  The blog Swing State Project, for instance, notes that Sarah Palin quit the last thing she was doing before she was governess :

One other thought about Alaska that just about everyone in the tradmed seems to be missing. Sarah Palin did have a job in between being mayor of Wasilla and Alaska Governor: she was chair of Frank Murkowski’s Oil and Gas Commission. How long was she on this Commission? Less than a year… until she quit in January 2004 with a big public huff (leaving the Commission in the lurch with only one member), saying “the experience was taking the ‘oomph’ out of her passion for government service and she decided to quit rather than becoming bitter.”

And the Daily Kos adds:

Don’t forget that she also quit four different colleges en route to getting a degree in journalism. It seems that the one lesson Sarah Palin’s learned her whole life is that quitters always win.

Yaaay, quitters always win! I’m off to quit something right now!

(Via Daily Kos)

Serolf Divad never really quit enough stuff to be truly succesful.