{"id":4643,"date":"2011-04-22T03:11:06","date_gmt":"2011-04-22T10:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4643"},"modified":"2011-04-22T03:11:06","modified_gmt":"2011-04-22T10:11:06","slug":"the-republican-ensign-has-fallen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/22\/the-republican-ensign-has-fallen\/","title":{"rendered":"The Republican Ensign Has Fallen"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to Webster<\/a>, an ensign is <\/font>a badge of office, rank, or power.  The ensign representing the Republican Party, because he so perfectly represents Republican ethical standards and C-Street family values is Senator John Ensign.  Yesterday the Republican Ensign fell.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"22ensign\"Nevada Sen. John Ensign, facing an ethics investigation stemming from his affair with a campaign aide, will resign Friday<\/strong>, his office announced.<\/p>\n

The senator’s decision was met with a collective sigh of relief \u2014 and little surprise \u2014 in his home state, where Ensign’s scandals have dominated headlines for nearly two years.<\/p>\n

Ensign, a Republican, had announced in March that he would not seek a third term in 2012, saying he wanted to spare his family from an "exceptionally ugly" campaign.<\/p>\n

His resignation with more than 20 months left in his term<\/strong> will spare him the possibility of prosecution by the Senate Ethics Committee, which in February named a special counsel to investigate his potential violations of ethics rules and federal law.<\/p>\n

"I will not continue to subject my family, my constituents or the Senate to any further rounds of investigation, depositions, drawn-out proceedings or especially public hearings," Ensign said in a statement. "For my family and me, this continued personal cost is simply too great."<\/p>\n

He also denied violating Senate rules or laws\u2026<\/p>\n

…Ensign will formally submit his resignation letter to Vice President Joe Biden, who also is president of the Senate, on Friday. It will take effect May 3, when the Senate is scheduled to return from recess.<\/p>\n

\"22angle\"Two members of Congress from Nevada, Democrat Shelley Berkley and Republican Dean Heller, have already entered the race to succeed Ensign. Nevada’s new Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, could appoint Heller to Ensign’s seat, giving him the advantage of incumbency in what both parties expect to be one of the premier 2012 races.<\/p>\n

That would trigger a special election for Heller’s 2nd Congressional District seat, which "tea party" supporter Sharron Angle has announced her intention to seek<\/strong>. She narrowly lost a Senate race to Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2010\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <LA Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

In March, Ensign said that he would not resign, stressing that to do do would be an admission of guilt.  Why now?  It appears that he has been informed that the ethics committee findings are that he should be expelled from the Senate.  The case against him is so air tight, the only way he can shut down that action and avoid exposing himself to criminal charges is to quit first.  Lawrence O\u2019Donnell and writer Jonathan Capehart covered the details.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

I remember Senator Pokewood!  In fact, he is the last Republican for whom I voted.  OOPS!<\/font><\/p>\n

The down side of this is that the Ensign\u2019s Republican replacement will get to run as an incumbent in 2012.  The up side is the election to replace Heller for the rest of this term will include Sharon \u201cObtuse\u201d Angle and will bring numerous and priceless examples of Teabuggery to ridicule.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Webster, an ensign is a badge of office, rank, or power.  The ensign representing the Republican Party, because he so perfectly represents Republican ethical standards and C-Street family values is Senator John Ensign.  Yesterday the Republican Ensign fell. Nevada Sen. John Ensign, facing an ethics investigation stemming from his affair with a campaign […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}