THE EARMARK

Disgraced Representative Eric Massa (D-NY) only has a few hours left in his House term, which means he’d better hustle if he hopes to alienate all of Congress by day’s end.

Fortunately, Massa is off to a good start upon explaining that a male aide’s sexual harassment allegation was set up by the Democrats because Massa wanted to oppose the health care bill…

“Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill and this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill, and now they’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass. You connect the dots.”

Massa began the dot-connecting process for us all when he attempted to explain his sexual harassment to a local New York radio station.  His primary points are:

• The main harassment took place when everyone was drunk.
• His wife was there, but only she wasn’t, because she, um, had… the stomach flu.  Yeah…
• First he sexually harassed some women, so remember that before you call him gay.
• The whole thing is actually Steny Hoyer’s fault.
• He’s had cancer, alright?

Roll Call has the full summary of the interview, and if you bother to read the whole thing, let us know.  Particularly if, somewhere in it, Massa starts calling himself “salty” again.

Remember how, back in 2008, we all voted out the Republicans because they were greedy, corrupt, and disrespectful of the voting public?  Well give them this much: At least they were good at it.

If you want to see politicians who are simultaneously a) corrupt and b) really bad at it, look no farther than New York state, where elected Democrats are tarnishing every institution of disciplined corruption that the Gambino family worked for decades to establish.

To illustrate our point, here’s a list of all the corrupt Democrats that New York has had to endure in recent months… plus the corrupt Republicans they could learn from.

Corrupt Democrat	Act of Corruption	Republican Who Did It Better
Eliot Spitzer, ex-governor	Hard to believe this was 2 years ago.  Spitzer rode a wave of self-righteousness all the way to Washington, DC, where he washed up aboard The Mayflower… and then paid several thousand dollars for rough sex.	David Vitter, who one-ups Spitzer’s hypocrisy by trying to criminalize the very prostitution industry he patronized so faithfully.
David Paterson, current governor	Allegedly used state police to intimidate the victim of his wife-beating aide. And he forced the Yankees to give him free World Series tickets.	Rudy Giuliani knows more about exploiting the Yankees.  He also knows how to get way more out of thuggish police officers.
Hiram Monserrate, ex-State Senator	Beat the crap out of his live-in girlfriend.	Ousted Rep. Don Sherwood (R-PA) beat the crap out of his live-in mistress.
Charlie Rangel, U.S. Representative	Despite chairing the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, he appears to not have declared a taxable asset since the Carter administration.	Ex-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who’s paying back taxes on lobbying gifts in the form of hand-made license plates.
Eric Massa, U.S. Representative	Propositioned a male aide in his Capitol Hill offices.	Actually, Massa even beats the Republicans in this category.  Not even Mark Foley was slick enough to use the excuse: “I’m just a salty old sailor.“

As chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) must protect our nation’s revenue, so that every American, no matter how rich and powerful, contributes to the common good.

And if there’s one thing that angers Ways and Means chairmen, it’s people who don’t report income, receive gifts without paying the proper tariffs, and generally cheat the tax system. That’s why Chairman Rangel cast his gaze over Congress and fired the man who most sullies the reputation of his committee: Charlie Rangel.

Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York announced on Wednesday that he would temporarily step down from his powerful post as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in an attempt to avert a politically bruising fight over permanently stripping the gavel from his hands.

In stripping Chairman Rangel of his duties, Chairman Rangel demonstrated he would have no tolerance for:

• Omitting hundreds of thousands of dollars in overseas vacation property from your tax returns.
• Omitting several million dollars in domestic assets from your tax returns.
• Attending lobbyist-funded junkets in the Caribbean, and neglecting to note them on your tax returns.

All of these are clear violations of federal law, leaving Chairman Rangel with no choice but to relieve Chairman Rangel of his duties.

With tax ethics properly addressed, Rangel can now turn his attention toward weeding out other Congressional impurities… including Congressmen who are overweight, Congressmen who wear their hair like Pat Riley, and Congressmen who talk like Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny.

We here at The Earmark are delighted to see Joe “The Plumber” The Plumber back in the news again.  It seems like years since we were reporting on:

• His B. Dalton-packing book tour.
• His ground-breaking research in the field of Early Republic scholarship.
• His hard-charging journalistic career.
• His narrow escape from Barack Obama’s Death Panel.
• And who could forget … his country music career.

Well, now he’s tossing us some more low-hanging fruit in the form of an angry diatribe against John McCain!  Yes, the same John McCain who plucked him from YouTube obscurity and made him the iconic embodiment of the typical American working man (who apparently makes over $250,000 a year).

Here’s Joe the Plumber on his benefactor:

John McCain is no public servant. … I don’t owe him shit.  He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it.

We’re not 100% sure why Joe is so mad at McCain - perhaps at some campaign event, the candidate got upset and threatened to give him a “switchin’.”  But we do know the best way to get revenge: meet McCain on his own turf.

By running for Congress.

The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that government has no power to restrict freedom of speech, religion or the press.  The second amendment says that if a desperate raccoon chews its way into your house during a blizzard, you’re allowed to blow it to pieces with a $2000 gas-powered Desert Eagle handgun.

Representative Steve King  (R-IA) cashed in on that second freedom last week, as evidenced by this incredibly manly Twitter boast…

Mid day, mid blizzard, 15 degrees, Crazy Raccoon chewing and clawing his way into my house. Desert Eagle 1, Crazy Raccoon zero.

So to all of you complaining that our congressmen never get anything done, now you know how they’re otherwise occupied: Staying indoors and firing pistols at panicked wildlife.

Congressman King defended his raccoon annihilation to Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, explaining that while he respects most animals, “I can’t have a crazy ’coon.”  Interesting language coming from the only U.S. representative to vote against acknowledging slaves’ role in the Capitol building’s construction.

As for the Desert Eagle handgun, you might be interested to know that it:

- is manufactured by Magnum Research, which declares itself “maker of the world’s most powerful handguns.”

- is sold under the slogan “the science of kaboom.”

- enjoyed great fame as the gun that got Gilbert Arenas kicked out of the NBA.

And to think: If only Arenas had used his gun to blow up raccoons instead of to “prank” a teammate, he could’ve ditched basketball altogether, kept working in Washington, and represented Council Bluffs, Iowa in Congress.

Or he could have used it to shoot an elderly man in the face and become Vice President.

Early yesterday morning, U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA)  absconded from his earthly legislating duties for a little slice of paradise beyond the clouds.  And no, that doesn’t mean he rode a Lockheed Martin F-35 to John Murtha Regional Airport in Pennsylvania.  It just means he died.  Went to heaven, if you’re a believer.

Now some of you might say that’s hogwash.  Like if you’re Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), and you don’t believe in heaven.   Or if you’re Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), and you don’t believe in heaven for Jack Murtha.  Or if you’re a resident of Murtha’s district, and you don’t believe in heaven for Congressmen that support black presidential candidates.

But let’s say Murtha did make it through the pearly gates.  What awaits him?  Well, here are some possibilities for the dearly departed Democrat…

Rest in peace, Congressman Murtha.

U.S. Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao (R-LA) is in a lot of trouble as he stares down 2010 campaign season.

For starters, he’s a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic New Orleans district.  His seat is the top target of the Democratic House Campaign Committee, according to the Swing State Project.  And just today Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, ran the headline “Cao Most Vulnerable Member in ‘10.”  Folks, this is Bob Taft territory that we’re entering.

But not all hope is lost because Rep. Cao has a strategy, and it’s the same one that propelled him to victory in 2008:

1. Wait until your opponent is indicted for taking half a million in bribes, racketeering, money laundering and obstruction of justice.
2. Cruise to victory!

Now it’s true that Cao can’t fully implement said strategy until $90,000 cash is found in top challenger Cedric Richmond’s freezer, but hey — it’s still 14 months until the election, people!  Maybe Richmond is still out buying the aluminum foil.

And once Cao’s plan comes to fruition, the seat should be his for the next 235 years, after which it will return to a freshly-paroled William Jefferson.

Nor will the New York Democrat be chairing the housing, banking, or general honesty committees.  Why?  Because those duties would all clash with his current slate of corruption running the House Ways and Means Committee.

Here’s how the Washington Post breaks it down…

Mr. Rangel’s amended financial disclosure form, which exposes omissions from his 2002 through 2006 records, is a treasure trove of outrage. He neglected to report a checking account with the Congressional Federal Credit Union and one with Merrill Lynch, each valued between $250,000 and $500,000; the tens of thousands of dollars he’s earning from dividends from a number of mutual funds and stocks; and the money made from the sale of a Harlem townhouse. As a result, Mr. Rangel’s reported net worth doubled, from between $516,015 and $1,316,000 to between $1,028,024 and $2,495,000.

Now Rangel has a number of excuses he can claim for such transgressions.  Among them:

* A couple million dollars is chump change when you’re Charlie Rangel.

* He opted to forgo the middleman and hand his tax dollars directly to Jack Murtha’s friends and relatives.

* He’s still a hell of a lot better at math than anyone working in the White House.

Unfortunately for Rangel, none of those excuses will be good enough to wrest the Math Committee chairmanship away from its current holder, Rep. Don Young (R-AK).  If you’re gonna get creative with the numbers, why stop at six digits?