• In a 5-4 ruling today, the Supreme Court has (again) decided that the prisoners at Gitmo deserve some semblance of the rights afforded everyone else imprisoned in this country, like the right to protest to a judge the fact that they've been held for 6 years without charges. In his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia defended the right to not afford the detainees any rights because "America is at war with radical Islamists," but I'm sure he came up with some bullshit legal reasoning to discard the Constitution like he always does. Strict constructionalist my ass. [Washington Post]
• In other legal news, the jury is now considering its verdict in the R. Kelly case. [AP]
• In yet further legal news, Tony Rezko claims that federal prosecutors cajoled him to make up allegations against Barack Obama. He says, "I will never fabricate lies about anyone else for selfish purposes. I will take what comes my way, but I will never hurt innocent people." Except, you know, when he bribes officials and commits frauds. [Politico]
• Oh, look, the first food named after Eliot Spitzer: "a gargantuan patty wrapped around braised shortribs (no foie gras, here) and slathered with barbecue sauce". Now if only the Mayflower could, um, swallow their pride and name a drink after him, my life would be complete. [OuttaMindOuttaSite]

• Speaking of assholes, Lou Dobbs may run for governor of New Jersey. I guess his neon coloring would fit in well in Trenton. [Politico]
• Oh, whatever, I'll keep up the asshole theme. Ron Paul's going to officially end his Presidential bid, but won't endorse John McCain and he's going to use his people's money to support other crazy Libertarian candidates. There are so many Republican Naders this year, it warms my bitter little heart. [NY Times]
• Oh, and Nicky Sarkozy's getting a brand new old plane to join the Mile High Club in. [Jaunted]
• Fine, I'll give you some good news. EMILY's List Ellen Malcolm and Madeline Albright gave speeches today at EMILY's annual luncheon and urged people to suck it up and vote Barack. Most people seemingly listened. [HuffPo]

MOE: Good morning sunshine! We get to talk about whores again today bc that's all that's happening!

MEGAN: You mean, that's all anyone cares about... I'm pretty sure there's still, like, nukes in North Korea and people dying in the Sudan and Iran being all dramatic and a Democratic primary today. But, yes, let us discuss the whoremongering presumably-soon-to-be-ex Governor of my home state of New York. The first Democratic Governor in 12 years!

MOE: Well, we could talk about how the Cuban psychologist who interviewed John McCain after a few years in the Hanoi HIlton is "leaning towards Obama"...but yeah, I'm thinking whores. And I'm thinking "things you may think are unsafe." What the fuck is a fucking prostitute supposed to think is unsafe?

MEGAN: I dunno, the kind of creepy fucking dude that insists on fucking you without condoms, disease be damned?
Because, God knows, you wouldn't want to mitigate your marital transgressions/risk to your spouse/crimes against womanity by having safe sex or anything so that you don't, you know, give your wife HIV without her knowledge and thus eventually kill her.

MOE: So what. Was he trying to self-destruct? What with the cell phone, the cash flow problems, the Mayflower Hotel? This was all I kept hearing last night on the shows. Like: this is too weird. Too crazy. He didn't try hard enough not to get caught. He's making his enemies too happy. Oh, and speaking of, last night TUCKER said something along the lines of, "It's always these secular moralists that turn out to be the biggest hypocrites" — um yeah, Tucker, go on speaking those sorts of inconvenient truths on national TV and you'll find yourself bumped off the ... oh wait! Anyway. So...personally I think, tough job, pressure, self-righteous prick, I'm going to put my jizz somewhere it's not supposed to go. NOT into a condom.

MEGAN: I mean, but, he's the Governor of New York, it's not like he actually had to, you know, pay for sex, even condomless sex. And given that the only lengths he went to not to get caught (as you said) only involved hiding the financials of it, which is what kicked off the investigation, it's not like a mistress (or several) would've been less discreet.
I'm going with something more deep-seated than simply stress and being a dirty whoremonger.
But, I'm biased. Guys that patronize whores wig me out. The rating system at the agency he used is even ookier. Like, hello Johns of the world, please rate the sexual services of the whores you use. Ew.

MOE: How creepy is that New York Magazine totally blogged about the way "Kristen" dealt with Client #9 a few days before this story broke???

Kristen, the prostitute, has just serviced a john. Rachelle, her boss, has asked her if he was "difficult," because, she says, this guy has asked for strange things in the past.

Kristen: "I don't think he's difficult. I mean it's just kind of like, whatever, I'm here for a purpose. I know what my purpose is. I am not a ... moron, you know what I mean. So maybe that's why girls think they're difficult. That's what it is, because you're here for a purpose. Let's not get it twisted. I know what I do, you know.

Rachelle: "You look at it uniquely, because no one ever sees it that way."

Kristen: "I have a way of dealing with that. I'd be like, listen dude, you really want the sex? You know what I mean?"

MOE: It's almost worth it for that.

MEGAN: Also, WHY WOULD YOU PAY A HOOKER EXTRA FOR SEX WITHOUT A CONDOM

MOE: For Clients 1-8 or whatever to be DICK GRASSO AND HENRY BLODGET AND JEFF SKILLING

MEGAN: It's like, omg, seriously? Seriously? Teenage daughters? Wife? Mistress? Your own health? Nothing?

MOE: Yeah I dunno. If you want sex without a condom, don't you just go to your wife?

MEGAN: Like, seriously, the Governor of New York is one of those dudes that thinks he can't come with a condom on?
You know what I say to those dudes?
I DON'T CARE IF YOU COME.
Because, really, while it's nice and all, I guess, for the dude to get off that is FAR from my number one priority.
Like, really, really, really far.

MOE: And wait, is that the whole "unspoken" part of this shit here? I think it is. That, hello, Silka not only had a sort of whore-y sounding name, she was kind of cerebral-hot, if on the skinny side (obviously, at 5'5 and 105 pounds Kristen was pretty skinny herself) and definitely, you know, sexually attractive. In my straight humble opinion.

MEGAN: Yes, his wife is definitely an attractive woman.

MOE: Now I know, I know, for every devastatingly hot woman out there there's some dude who is sick of fucking her, and they had been together a long time, but ...whores?
MEGAN: It should stand her in good stead when she finally finishes divorcing his dumb whoremongering ass and gets through therapy and starts to date again.

MOE: Do you think he just used to have illicit sex with like paralegals and strippers and crap and then he moved to Albany and it got more difficult?
Well no, I mean, look, she lives in New York, she is probably fucked.

MEGAN: Ha. I doubt he spends much more time in Albany than Pataki did, which is to say, not much.
But, also, I have seen at least one of my high school classmates get popped on a solicitation charge (it was in the papers) and rumor is at least another one did. Plus, two strippers in my graduating class alone. So, fucking whores: not that hard in Albany.

(For those people who don't obsessively track every detail about me, I grew up in Scotia, NY. It's outside of Albany.)
Also, the NY Post headline is sort of priceless: Ho, No!

MOE: Yeah I'm scanning that natch. So ... it's really uplifting that Wall Street feels so very very vindicated. Here Dick Grasso was just trying to hold onto the $200 million he so rightly deserved for running the fucking stock exchange and Spitzer gets all up in his shit. America's executives may never again know a legislator as innovative at chipping away at their paychecks as they are at finding clever ways to pump them up.

MEGAN: Sigh. I mean, do you think he was thinking about how to fuck Grasso while fucking the prostitute?
MOE: I don't know. I mean, how long had he been a client of the Emperor's Club? Is that clear? Rachelle made it seem like he had a long history of making whores feel dirty. (Such class!) Seriously he probably just has a small weiner. Not that I want to get into that, but isn't that, besides the overly large weiner, generally the reason those dudes don't like condoms?

MEGAN: Nope. I, ahem, (DAD: STOP READING HERE) have fucked dudes with small penii and ones with large and there's no correlation between that and the dudes that have tried to talk me out of condom usage. The only thing the dudes that try to talk a girl out of wearing condoms are the ones with the least respect for me and my choices.
Ok, that was really poorly written. The thing I meant to say is that the thing that the dudes who beg to lose condoms have in common are a lack of respect for me and my choices.
But, yes, I do agree that Eliot Spitzer probably has an insanely small penis in addition to being a disrespectful, hypocritical piece of shit.
Like, total micropenis.
Practically a clitoris, only less attractive and with less sensation.
MOE: O, condoms. No one has ever begged me not to use them but I am also not always the most vigilant person about their use but what the fuck, I don't get laid. I actually just don't want the shit inside me ever, but that is another story. Um, so I'm really glad my parents don't read Jezebel ever.

Okay, so...moving on to brighter subjects, David Paterson of Harlem seems like a stand-up replacement, eh?
MEGAN: Paterson is a stand-up guy. So much so that, well, apparently Spitzer was the only one who wanted him to be L.G.
MOE: Also he has a 13-year-old son who supports Obama and aspires to be an investment banker.
MEGAN: And he's reportedly not loved Spitzer's other little scandals this year, like the having the State Police track Joe Bruno and shit.
MOE: Ooooh, also he has run in the NYC marathon and plays basketball. And he is BLIND.
MEGAN: And he'll be the first African-American Governor of New York. He's a big Hillary supporter, btw, even if his son supports Obama.

MOE: Also I guess we had better mention Obama's name coming up in some email blah blah blah Rezko so the bias police don't go after us. (Hey, BTW guys, we're biased! We have opinions! Okay then!)
MEGAN: Yeah, I saw that. Took 'em long enough to work his name in there somehow. The trial started last week.
MOE: Oh yeah and Chris Hitchens slamming Prince Harry if anyone cares.

MEGAN: Uh, what the fuck, Hitchens? Show of hands who would rather be a dirty cougar and fuck Prince Harry than Christopher Hitchens even after he's had his sack waxed [Caution: Link is relatively safe for work, but may result in a loss of appetite or sexual desire as well as a desire to be blind]

MOE: Okay, Tony Rezko: hot or not?
JUST KIDDING

MEGAN:I have to say, as much as I like beards and goatees, I can't get on board with a 'stache.

MOE: Yeah he's a seventiespornstar
Okay, so we have photographic evidence that Rezko and the Clintons hung out. And apparently he's friends with Obama too. I have to say that I love how campaigns always thrust these dumbshit hucksters whose knack for shady deals might be impressive if they weren't such ultimately small shady deals into the limelight.
I mean, you live in a big city (that is not, like, Phoenix) and you pay even the slightest attention to municipal politics and you meet a Tony Rezko every day. That's my uninformed opinion.

MEGAN:I think, too, that it's because the vast majority of big donors are all Tony Rezko - rich, but not old/huge money, that are doing it for the boner they get from access to power.
Like, why spend $2,000 to fund an unknown candidate for state Senate?
So, like, a level of shadiness is to be expected. At least with lobbyists you know why they're there.

MOE: Funny you should mention lobbyists, former lobbyist!

MEGAN:Is it sad that I started reading and went, "Oh, well, finally they got their shit together!"?
I mean, the ports debacle was this brilliant combination of timing and sneaky, sneaky lobbying by the company that was poised to lose big time in the deal.
They ginned up the controversy over teh A-rabz taking over our ports and letting the terrists win in order to prevent losing a subcontract there because they sucks

MOE: Okay, and that inspired the UAE to hire former Clinton campaign aide Richard Mintz to spearhead this $15 million lobbying effort — and $15 million is a lot in Washington — but they still don't have any press kits and their director of publicity is PREVENTED FROM SPEAKING TO THE PRESS.
Is that my hangover?
Did I read that correctly?

MEGAN:Well, $15 million is a good sized chunk of change, but I'm betting that Mintz is overcharging because he can. You know, being the former adviser of the woman seemingly likely to become President.
Anyway, I just found the article that I was referencing that talks about all the shady lobbying that scuttled the Dubai Ports deal.
So that people don't think I'm talking out of my ass.
But, in answer to your original question, you did read that right, but it's $15 million over 3 years, some of which is intended for redistribution to other groups in town so it's a nice payday for Hillary's boy but not unheard of.

MOE: Okay, so the Dubai Ports scandal was cooked up by a company in Florida that, among other things, got in trouble for bankrolling a $900,000 romance between the CEO and the widow of its founder in 2000. So yeah, a little lobbying for a good cause probably wasn't much skin off their nose. I wonder who the Eller folks are supporting in the election, since they're based in Florida and there's about to be a primary there. And Romney is in the lead on the Republican side...
Also, should Hillary Clinton not get shit for knocking that Dubai ports deal with one side of her sexy mouth while she applies for dual citizenship or whatever with the other?

MEGAN:Oh, you mean the whole part where her husband is invested there through Burkle's company and stands to make a zillion dollars?
I mean, calling any current politician out for being a flip-flopping hypocrite is like calling them... a politician.

MOE: Right. I mean, I don't care I guess. We need Dubai and their money. Now, the US economy is not where I would spend my sovereign wealth fund, but I am not one of those believers in capitalism. I mean, a few days ago Drudge made this really big deal about how this stood to be the first BILLION DOLLAR CAMPAIGN wherein a billion dollars were spent on marketing and advertising, and I wanted to point out at the time that that is only about a half billion dollars shy of Nike's annual advertising and marketing budget. NIKE. Not Apple or Microsoft or P&G or the fast food industry, which all spend much more. Money in politics is actually not as the money that is not in politics. At least, with the money in politics, some people pay attention.

MEGAN:Although, I have to say, except when I have to watch them for a job, I ignore campaign commercials. I bail on network TV before an election because no one bothers running political ads on Discovery or Animal Planet.
And I've never worn Nikes.

MOE: Oh are you an Adidas girl?
SPEAKING OF SHOPPING..... what are you doing with your stimulus package?

MEGAN:Honestly, I'd have to find them and look. I think they might be New Balance. I bought them at DSW for $20
Um, I'm currently not full-time employed. I hear "free money" I think "student loan payment."
Or "new brakes."

MOE: Um, because I just got it, I'm thinking... my utility bill!
I have to ask. How much is yours?

MEGAN:My utility bill? Or my student loan payment?

MOE: Both!

MEGAN:My student loan payment is $400 a month for about the next 15 years, give or take. My gas bill is usually about $10-$15 and my electric around $30, but my heat and hot water are included in the condo fee, so it's not an accurate representation.

MOE: Oh. Condo fees. The American Dream, right. Well, it may hearten you to learn that a dropout renter paid more than your student loan payment to heat my TINY MOTHERFUCKING APARTMENT last month.

MEGAN:Ooh, ouch. I lived with a girl in grad school who WOULD NOT ever turn the heat down from 80 in the winter, not that it's really cold here. The month of December when I wasn't around much, she ran up a $330 heating bill, and that was back in 2000.

MOE: Yeah we keep it pretty warm etc. etc. I'm not going to lie. Does this mean my carbon footprint is, uh, deeper than I thought? Or that that whole global warming thing is a crock of shit anyway?