{"id":90,"date":"2009-10-03T03:28:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-03T11:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=90"},"modified":"2009-10-03T03:28:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-03T11:28:00","slug":"ensign-exemplifies-gop-meltdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2009\/10\/03\/ensign-exemplifies-gop-meltdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Ensign Exemplifies GOP Meltdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Ensign is the lone Pentecostal in the US Senate, and his days may be numbered.<\/p>\n

\n

\"GOPHypocrites\"<\/a> The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide, current and former officials said Friday.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever allegations of improper conduct are brought to the attention of Senate Ethics Committee, we open a preliminary inquiry,\u201d said Natalie Ravitz, a spokeswoman for Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the committee.<\/font><\/p>\n

The inquiries will most likely examine whether Mr. Ensign, a Nevada Republican, or Douglas Hampton, his one-time administrative assistant, broke the law after Mr. Hampton, immediately upon leaving his Congressional job last year, began to lobby Mr. Ensign\u2019s office<\/strong>. Mr. Hampton, as a senior aide, was subject to a one-year lobbying ban, lawyers who specialize in ethics law said.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is difficult for me to imagine they would not look into it,\u201d said Kenneth A. Gross, a former associate general counsel at the Federal Election Commission. As a lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Mr. Gross has represented Washington officials in ethics investigations.<\/font><\/p>\n

Mr. Ensign could be legally at risk if he knew that Mr. Hampton was violating the one-year ban, or if he actually directed him to do so, as Mr. Hampton has said<\/strong>, ethics lawyers said\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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

This one should be a slam dunk, because more that one source has apparently revealed that Ensign personally set up Hampton\u2019s hiring and subsequently supported positions favorable to Hampton\u2019s new employer.  He did this to cover up his affair and avoid being exposed as a hypocrite who supports enforcing theocratic values on everyone else, while considering himself above having to follow them himself.<\/p>\n

Not only is this typical for C Street, but also, it\u2019s symptomatic of the Republican leadership as a whole.  Max Blumenthal explains this in a new book, Republican Gomorrah<\/u>.  Video Nation has a review.<\/p>\n

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

I think what we\u2019re witnessing here is the final meltdown of the once great Republican Party, that has driven all but most extreme radical right wingers from the party, and that now represents only corporate greed, racism, and the American Taliban. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Ensign is the lone Pentecostal in the US Senate, and his days may be numbered. The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-religion","category-5-id","category-47-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","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=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}