South Carolina Senate candidate Alvin Greene has been indicted on obscenity charges.

Washington Post:

Longshot U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene was indicted Friday on two charges, including a felony charge of showing pornography to a South Carolina college student.

A Richland County grand jury indicted Green for disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity - a felony - as well as a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.

Greene, who surprised the Democratic party establishment with his primary victory, was arrested in November after authorities said he approached a student in a University of South Carolina computer lab, showed her obscene photos online, then talked about going to her dorm room.

Greene declined comment at his home. He has also refused to talk about the charge in interviews.

Jim DeMint is, I'm sure, suitably shocked. And cackling. I'm still convinced the voting machines put this idiot in the primary.

Update: And to think, he just got himself a whole new set of new advisors, too.

The most famous candidate in the country was in Columbia Thursday evening, making his way through a small crowd and shaking hands, schmoozing and introducing a member of a documentary film crew that has been following him along the most written about campaign trail in America.

The candidate is not running for president, but the U.S. Senate. His name is Alvin Greene. Maybe you’ve heard of him.

Greene was in town for a meeting of the South Carolina Democratic Party executive committee and gave a brief speech to a room of about 50 at the state party's headquarters on Hampton Street.

He asked the Democrats there -- many had recently voted down a protest to his surprise primary win June 8 over former judge and legislator Vic Rawl -- to support him in the fall election against Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, Green Party nominee Tom Clements and write-in candidate Mazie Ferguson.

There was a smattering of applause. A man shouted out “I’ll vote for you.” A woman seconded it.

Greene’s speech clocked in at around 23 seconds, which is consistent with what his campaign adviser Felipe Farley had predicted weeks ago, when he noted that Greene wasn’t going to be doing any long barnburners on the stump.

Just bizarre. That is all.

Tom Delay speaks out, and rips those Democrats who use politics of personal destruction!

Video

From Talk Left

And now we hear of a proposed change of rules in the House.

House Republicans plan to change their rules in order to allow members indicted by state prosecutors to remain in a leadership post, a move designed to benefit Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) in case he is charged by a Texas grand jury that has indicted three of his political associates, GOP leaders said today.

Of course, the rule was adopted by House Republicans in response to Dan Rostenkowski's misbehavior, but hey, he was a Democrat. The rule is no longer convenient for Republicans, so it's gotta go.

List of Delays problems:

1997, the Ethics Committee advised Mr. DeLay to avoid suggesting he would grant favors in exchange for campaign contributions.

2004, he hit the trifecta for his role in promising favors in exchange for a Medicare vote, admonished Mr. DeLay for his role in an energy fund-raiser, and admonished him for using FAA resources from Homeland Security to hunt down Democrats in his state.

Don't we have a third strike rule?

As Susie noted earlier, Techcrunch is reporting that Pennsylvania Attorney General (and Republican candidate for Governor) Tom Corbett, in a classic "we respect the Constitution until we don't" Republican move, has summoned Twitter officials to testify before a Grand Jury about two members' accounts.

It appears that two members have been openly critical of the Attorney General on Twitter and on an anonymous blog created to "expose the hypocrisy of Tom Corbett."

Here's the specific information Corbett wants (from the subpoena):

"Any and all subscriber information pertaining to the users of:

http://twitter.com/bfbarbie

http://twitter.com/CasablancaPA

This should include, but not limited to: name, address, contact information, creation date, creation Internet Protocol address and any and all log in Internet Protocol addresses."

The tweets which appear to be in question are ones like this:

Corbett is actively pursuing the prosecution of state employees alleged to have participated in a bonus program which used taxpayer dollars for campaigns. His results have been mixed: Two acquittals and three partial convictions.

Just a quick read through this article gives me the chills, especially when I came to the part where Corbett is under federal investigation for the very same charges.

Despite continued claims by the attorney general’s office that accusations, court motions and lawsuits against Corbett are baseless or “bogus,” it remains to be seen whether he can demonstrate to voters that he didn’t abuse his prosecutorial power in the semblance of cleaning up public corruption.

Additionally, a federal lawsuit filed against Corbett in 2008 alleges that thousands, perhaps millions, of public dollars were “illegally paid out to vendors.”

On March 11, Corbett was deposed in his office for six hours for a lawsuit filed against him and others in the office of the attorney general and Department of Revenue. The whistleblower case alleges that Thomas D. Kimmett, a former attorney with the AG’s office, and his assistant, Sherry E. Bellaman, were terminated because of Kimmett’s call for an independent investigation into the collection practices within the Attorney General’s Financial Enforcement Section.

The case alleges “pervasive wrongdoing” in the collection of accounts receivable amounting to upwards of $300 million to $500 million. It gives details of alleged fraudulent payouts to no-bid vendors and claims there was a “cover-up by Mr. Corbett and the other defendants.”

Back to Twitter for a minute. One of the most attractive features of the service is the rapid-fire message-in-140 one-to-many ability. It's easy, it's accessible via text message, the internet and just about any way one wants to access it, and so it enables free speech. True free speech. The kind that doesn't require millions of dollars and TV studio facilities to broadcast. It certainly facilitates the kind of free speech that Republicans extolled in their arguments for Citizens United.

What scares them most is their inability to control it like they do the airwaves and other venues. In my opinion, Corbett's efforts to expose anonymous Twitter identities is nothing more than a misguided slap at free speech and democracy.

Pruning Shears: Will bloggers rescue the Lehman story?

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Editorials from Hell's leading daily newspaper: Grand jury issues subpoenas in Ensign probe

Papamoka Straight Talk: Illegal Email Job Scams

Bic's Place: March Madness and Vasectomies

Wapo:

A federal judge ruled today that Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) will face trial in Washington next month, denying Stevens's request to transfer the case to a court in his home state.

...Stevens, 84, was indicted July 29 by a federal grand jury on charges he failed to report on Senate financial disclosure forms that he accepted more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations from executives of Veco, a now-defunct Alaska oil services company.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled that moving the trial to a federal court in Alaska would cause "delay and additional expense."

Aw gee, Judge Sullivan, I'm sure there are some former Veco executives who would be happy to help with the cost (snark).

STLtoday:

JEFFERSON CITY -- Missouri state Rep. Scott Muschany, R-Frontenac, was indicted today in connection with a reported sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl on May 17, the day after this year’s Legislative session ended.

The alleged victim is the daughter of a state employee. The girl’s mother and Muschany -– who is married and has two children -- were romantically involved, the woman said.

A Cole County grand jury returned an indictment today charging Muschany with the Class C felony of "deviate sexual assault." The indictment identifies the victim only by initials. It says that on May 17, Muschany "had deviate sexual intercourse" with the girl, "knowing that he did so without" her consent.

The document also alleges that the mother "did admit that the incident did take place, including her witnessing same." Read on...

After so many Republican sex crimes and scandals, you just have to scratch your head and wonder how one party could attract so many deviant hypocrites. Ready for the money shot? Muschany co-sponsored a bill in 2006 that toughened sex offender laws.

NPR:

FBI agents on Tuesday raided the offices of Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch, who oversees protection for federal whistleblowers. The agents seized computers and shut down email service as part of an obstruction of justice probe, NPR has exclusively learned.

FBI agents also searched Bloch's home and a Special Counsel field office in Dallas. A grand jury in Washington issued subpoenas for several OSC employees, including Bloch, according to NPR sources who spoke on condition their names not be used.

Bloch, who has also been under investigation for allegedly retaliating against career employees and obstructing an investigation, was being questioned at his Washington, D.C. office on Tuesday morning, according to the NPR sources.

WaPo:

A federal grand jury in Richmond indicted Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick and three other men yesterday on charges related to their alleged operation of a dogfighting ring based at a property Vick owns in southeastern Virginia. Vick, one of the NFL's most exciting players, was charged with competitive dogfighting and conducting the venture across state lines.

This is just sick. The NFL can't run away from this one...