Republican Crime Blotter: Grimm and Grimmer

Can you say Grand Jury indictment?  Staten Island Republican and would-be reporter tosser Rep. Michael "Dim" Grimm (Thug-NY) is expecting some bad news soon (NY Times via Daily Kos):

The [Grand Jury] charges against Mr. Grimm, 44, a Republican who was first elected in 2010 and represents Staten Island and a portion of Brooklyn, will include mail fraud and wire fraud and focus on his conduct in connection with a health food restaurant he owned on the Upper East Side of Manhattan after he left the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2006, one of the people said.

Unfortunately for Republicans, the deadline has passed for an alternative candidate to file a primary challenge to Grimm, who now would have to "withdraw" from the race in order to have an alternative selected by local Republicans.  His district was won by President Obama with 52 percent of the vote in 2012.

Can you say Ethics Probe?  Crackpot Republican Rep. Steve "My Gun Is My Manhood" Stockman (Peashooter-TX), who is not running for reelection following a disastrous primary challenge to Sen. John "All Hat, No Cattle" Cornyn, is being investigated for violating Federal Election Commission reporting requirements:

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) -- whose long-shot primary campaign to unseat Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) failed spectacularly this year -- said Friday he's facing a congressional ethics probe.  [snip] 

Two Stockman aides were fired in October after they made prohibited donations to his campaign, the Houston Chronicle reported. Stockman later announced he wouldn't run for reelection to his seat and would instead challenge Cornyn for the Republican Senate nomination, which he lost by 40 points in March.

If it's a fair investigation, we're certain Stockman will be found to have no ethics.

N.R.A. Stooge Stockman Challenging Establishment Stooge Cornyn

Getting in just at the deadline, N.R.A. stooge Rep. Steve "My Gun Is My Manhood" Stockman (Tin Foil Hat - TX) filed papers to challenge Sen. John "All Hat, No Cattle" Cornyn in the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party primary next year.  Tea party hero Stockman will be running to the right (!) of Cornyn, which should mean we'll be treated to a "how insane can you get" primary.  Stockman, of course, is known for his stunts rather than for doing anything productive (the perfect tea party guy, in other words), such as inviting Ted "Crap Pants Fever" Nugent as his guest at the 2012 State of the Union address, and for seeing how much he could afflict and shame poor people receiving assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Cornyn is well-known as a political weathervane and a weasel, so a change out from Cornyn to Stockman, which is unlikely at this point but not out of the question (this is Texas we're talking about here), would be tantamount to exchanging a coward for a crackpot.  (It's not like Cornyn didn't see this coming, but he chose to try to appease the furthest, most fetid swamps of the Republican base, which is looking like more and more a futile exercise for the "establishment wing" of the party.)

(Photo:  Three Stooges, minus one.)

Shopping Fool's Warehouse

Among the most entitled, soulless Congressmen of the Rethuglican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party (and Lord, there are so many) is NRA stooge  Rep. Steve "My Gun is My Manhood" Stockman (Guns!- TX).  But Stockman isn't a one trick pony, no suh!  Responding to a demonstration by House Democrats that cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program's (SNAP) budget by $21 billion over 10 years would cause people already subsisting on a tight food budget to suffer even more, Stockman sent his communications buttboy Dim Donny Ferguson out to the stupidmarket to buy some food and show them liebruls!  Here's what Dim Donny bought for his allowance (via Stockman's office - no link):

For $21.55 Ferguson purchased at Dollar Tree:
Two boxes of Honeycomb cereal
Three cans of red beans and rice
Jar of peanut butter
Bottle of grape jelly
Loaf of whole wheat bread
Two cans of refried beans
Box of spaghetti
Large can of pasta sauce
Two liters of root beer
Large box of popsicles
24 servings of Wyler’s fruit drink mix
Eight cups of applesauce
Bag of pinto beans
Bag of rice
Bag of cookies
For $6.03 at the Shoppers Food Warehouse next door Ferguson bought a gallon of milk and a box of maple and brown sugar oatmeal.

Mmmm. Yum!  We never realized the poors had it so good... or as Laura Clawson points out:

So he's got a lot of cereal for breakfast, and he can have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, along with maybe some applesauce and fruit drink. For dinner, it looks like he's eating spaghetti for a couple nights and otherwise eating beans and rice. Also popsicles and cookies. Healthy diet, there! And such a varied menu at dinner. Perhaps Ferguson isn't aware that the definition of low food security is "reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake." Exactly the diet he's reporting, in other words: fruits and vegetables only in the form of grape jelly, pasta sauce, and applesauce, heavily dependent on root beer and cookies and sugary cereal for calories, and beans and rice night after night for dinner. Not to mention the increased health care costs we can expect to see as a result of people living on diets like this and developing diabetes, hypertension, and a series of other health problems. 

Right.  Not surprisingly, Stockman whiffed on the point of the Democrats' demonstration, i.e., that you can't have a healthy diet on the subsistence-level assistance, much less if it's pared back over the next 10 years.  Sure, you can eat (and it looks like Stockman does quite well by himself in that category), but you're loading up on sugars and other empty calories.  But "not starving" isn't supposed to be the yardstick we use in this country, is it?