(h/t Howie at DWT for pic) Via Taking Down Words:

Former Clark County GOP Chair and newly elected Young Republican National Federation Chair Glenn Murphy is under investigation for criminal deviate conduct, a Class B felony, for allegedly engaging in oral sex with a sleeping victim. This is not his first run-in with the law for this kind of offense.Read the investigative report and a prior arrest for sexual battery in 1998 here: glennmurphy.pdf

WARNING: This is some pretty graphic stuff. Don't let the kiddies read it.

UPDATE: Murphy recently sent an e-mail telling friends in Florida about his decision to resign from the YRNF position for business reasons. Read more...

According to the police report the alleged victim is a man. The warning above should definitely be heeded, the report is extremely graphic. Murphy (no relation to me) was considered to be a rising star in the Indiana GOP...

NY Times (reg. req'd) did an article on Libby's commutation and how hesitant Bush has historically been in granting clemency in trial verdicts. We know all this, so I'll spare you the whole article. But one little paragraph caught my attention:

In his memoir, Mr. Bush wrote about agonizing over the case of Karla Faye Tucker, who in 1998 became the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War. Ms. Tucker, who was convicted in the ax murders of two people during a robbery in 1983, had become a born-again Christian while in prison, and her case drew support from across the political spectrum. Mr. Bush described feeling "like a huge piece of concrete was crushing me" as he waited with aides for Ms. Tucker's execution. It was, he said, "the longest 20 minutes of my tenure as governor."

Wow. Twenty. Whole. Minutes. Do you suppose that was before or after he did this?

News8Austin:

Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards -- the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity died at her Austin home.

She was 73.

Richards died Wednesday night surrounded by her family after a battle with esophageal cancer, family spokeswoman Cathy Bonner said.

Here's a audio link of her 1998 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address

Moveleft found this gem about GE and the war machine:
"This cartoon "Conspiracy Theory Rock" by Robert Smigel was shown on "Saturday Night Live" during the March 14, 1998 broadcast but edited out of reruns. For that broadcast, the host was Julianne Moore and the musical guest was the Backstreet Boys.

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT

"The title and the style of the animation are a takeoff on the educational TV series, "Schoolhouse Rock," which was shown as a public service in-between network entertainment cartoons on Saturday mornings in the 1970s...read on"

Emailer White Cat: "I rediscovered these few lines from M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie (1998) while waiting for a plane at LAX last night.

"It is characteristic of those who are evil to judge others as evil. Unable to acknowledge their own imperfections, they must explain away their flaws by blaming others. And, if necessary, they will even destory others in the name of righteousness."

via The Nation: ..."During an August 1998 episode of the show, Turner reminded Hannity that were it not for the graciousness of the white man, "black people would still be swinging on trees in Africa," according to Daryle Jenkins, co-founder of the New Jersey-based antiracism group One People's Project. Instead of rebuking Turner or cutting him off, Hannity continued to welcome his calls....

Jenkins told me that while he and a group of antiracism activists demonstrated against a July 17, 2003, National Alliance meeting in Elmwood Park, New Jersey, which Turner attended, he encountered Turner and asked him about his relationship with Hannity. Turner claimed that he and Hannity would talk by phone and even recounted that Hannity had once invited him and his son on to the set of Hannity and Colmes. "In my view," says Jenkins, "I think Hannity has helped Turner out quite a bit. I'm willing to bet most of the conversations they had consisted of them talking shop." ...read on

Sean... are you embarrassed by your active participation in the life of a racist, Neo-Natzi, judge hating animal? Can you look into the camera and tell all of America you now denounce your association with this man that you yourself allowed to grow and flourish for years on end? Would you care to explain why this relationship even existed knowing the type of man Hal Turner is in the first place? Aren't you the least bit ashamed? Do you have any moral dignity at all? Isn't this the type of behavior that personifies the Republican Party? (Just testing my Hannity interview skills.)

Yucca data allegedly falsified

WASHINGTON -- Employees of the U.S. Geological Survey who were revisiting scientific study on the key issue of water flow at Yucca Mountain allegedly falsified research documents, an Energy Department review of employee e-mails revealed.

Department officials discovered the e-mails as part of a massive review of millions of program document pages in preparation for submitting an application for a license to construct Yucca. "Multiple" e-mails written between May 1998 and March 2000 indicate that a U.S. Geological Survey employee fabricated documentation of his work, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Wednesday. read on

via DC's Inside Scoop

Evidence of hypocrisy among GOP "Legislator-Physicians" continues to mount. Although he is now a vigorous advocate for Schiavo, Senator Tom Coburn admitted in 1998 to respecting the wishes of his dying patients and not giving them feeding tubes if they didn't want them.

This week, Coburn issued a statement where he said: “As a practicing physician, I have dedicated much of my life to protecting the sanctity of life at all of its stages... Taking innocent life at any stage is cruel and immoral.” [The Daily Oklahoman 3/19/05]

But in 1998, then-Congressman Coburn told the The Tulsa World that physicians should have the option of withholding nutrients and water from a dying patient. Coburn said he has done that in the past. "If somebody does not want a feeding tube, I won't put a feeding tube down," he said.

The Center for Public Integrity

The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm that employs numerous former high-ranking government officials with ties to both political parties, was the ninth largest Pentagon contractor between 1998 and 2003, an ongoing Center for Public Integrity investigation into Department of Defense contracts found.

A dozen companies in which Carlyle had a controlling interest netted more than $9.3 billion in contracts.

Overall, six private investment firms, including Carlyle, received nearly $14 billion in Pentagon deals between 1998 and 2003. (See related report, "The Sincerest Form of Flattery.")

Mystery Pollster

Another day, another polling controversy. The latest involves a survey released last Monday by ABC News that shows 63 to 28 percent support for removal of Terry Schiavo's feeding tube. The survey drew intense interest in Washington and immediate allegations of biased question wording from the blogosphere's right wing. Captain's Quarters called it a "push poll for euthanasia." Wizbang adds another adjective, calling it a "bogus push poll for euthanasia." 

Do they have a point?  The quick answer:  The evidence of bias or deliberate untruth in the ABC poll is scant, though the issue raises some interesting questions about the appropriateness of "informed" questions.

Now here's the long version: updates and ...More

Investing in War         The Center for Public Integrity

The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm that employs numerous former high-ranking government officials with ties to both political parties, was the ninth largest Pentagon contractor between 1998 and 2003, an ongoing Center for Public Integrity investigation into Department of Defense contracts found.

A dozen companies in which Carlyle had a controlling interest netted more than $9.3 billion in contracts.

Overall, six private investment firms, including Carlyle, received nearly $14 billion in Pentagon deals between 1998 and 2003. (See related report, "The Sincerest Form of Flattery.")

Hey Father Death    adds another adjective, calling it a "bogus push poll for euthanasia."

Do they have a point? The quick answer: The evidence of bias or deliberate untruth in the ABC poll is scant, though the issue raises some interesting questions about the appropriateness of "informed" questions.

Now here's the long version: updates and ...More