Paul Stanley's Terrible, Horrible, Awful, Not So Good Year

This has not been the best of years for Senator Paul Stanley (R-G-Town).

First, he loses his main job when Stanford Financial's local office is raided, along with all the other Stanford offices due to their alleged worldwide fraud, to which Stanley is NOT linked in any way. Still, losing one's primary source of income stinks.

Apparently, however, other things in his life weren't going so hot, either.

According to documents filed in Davidson County Criminal Court (Link courtesy of NashvillePost.com!) , it seems that District 31's Senator was being blackmailed by a man named Joel Watts of Nashville. Why, you may ask?

It seems Mr. Watts' girlfriend, a 23 year-old intern from Austin Peay named McKensie Morrison, had been carrying on a dalliance with the aforementioned Senator, he of the bill to ban gay adoption on MORAL grounds. Ahem.

After getting Senator Stanley to agree to a payment of $10,000, they met at a Mexican restaurant in the Nashville burb of Whites Creek, where he received the payment, and handed over a computer disk with incrimination pictures of the senator and Ms. Morrison.

Unbeknownst to Mr. Watts, Sen. Stanley had gone to the TBI with his predicament, and when the transfers were completed, they arrested the blackmailer.

This happened APRIL 9. Why in the name of all that is right and decent and moral are we just being told about this NOW?????

While Senator Stanley is announcing that he will resign his chairmanship of the Commerce Committee tomorrow (but NOT his seat, apparently), why wasn't this brought out, say, um APRIL 9??? WTH???

Let's also say that we need to show some empathy for Senator Stanley's family, who has had to endure the indignity of finding out his company was filled with alleged crooks and losing the primary paycheck at the same time, only to then learn he was being blackmailed for diddling an intern on top of that!

However, I am not as determined to show any empathy for HIM. As Jon Stewart once said, "Another conservative politician with a liberal penis". While I have no standing to ask Senator Stanley to resign his Senate seat as well, as I am not a resident of District 31. Those of you who DO, however, are welcome to have at it.

UPDATE: Jackson Baker has a good take here.

Yahoo! I made it to 1000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ladies and germs, this is your humble Cracker's 1000th post, in our fourth year of operation, and I want to thank YOU for your viewing, your reading, your comments, and your support.

Thanks also to Jon for his commentary, I'm glad he settled here to help out with this effort.

Onward to 2000 and beyond!!!!!

UPDATE: in addition to the wonderful comments you have left, our beloved Newscoma is leading cheers at her place on this milestone, for which I am thankful...

If you're not a Country Music fan, then skip this post.

And I mean the REAL thing, not that white-suburban-pop crap that you hear on KIX 106 (or 95.3 The Rebel, for that matter).  As Dennis Miller used to say 10 years ago when he was still funny, I feel a rant coming on.

Tonight, as I helped Lauren set up her new computer, she broke out some CDs that she had made, and it was country hits going back to the 50s, and I almost wept when I heard classics like THE GRAND TOUR by George Jones and SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN, the Kris Kristofferson gem made famous by Johnny Cash.

As much as I would like to blame the current crop of country artists (save for George Strait, Alan Jackson and Brad Paisley) but I know it's not really their fault.  That responsibility falls at the feet of country radio programmers, who wouldn't know good music if they were inundated by it. 

Look at what they did to poor Sara Evans; she recorded one of the great albums of the 90s in country music, THREE CHORDS AND THE TRUTH, loved by critics, but hated by the brain-dead radio people.  They told her she needed to glam up and sound like the Dixie Chicks if she wanted to get on the radio; faced with continuing her art and starving, or staying alive in the business, she took the only action she could, recording BORN TO FLY.  she looked fabulous and sounded like the Chicks, and she got great airplay.

Now, you folks know I love the Chicks for their sound, their looks, and, most of all, their courage, but why did we need someone else doing that style of material?  Now, Sara Evans is just another country sound-alike, and it's a damned shame.

Fortunately, there's always Country Legends WMC79, but they are sometimes too heavy on the 80s.  For the hardest of the hardcore, there is Bashful Bob at WEVL on Wednesday from 10 AM to Noon with Sho-Nuff Country, which spans Country from the 40s to the 70s, and it is magnificent.

And, I might add, on occasion, we are blessed by the appearance of the only REAL country band in these parts, the one, the only Papa Top's West Coast Turnaround, led by that well-known singer, reporter and director Chris Davis.  if you love GOOD country music (especially from Bakersfield!), you should see them on one of there all-too-infrequent appearances.  

Wait! Their MySpace page says they are having a CD release party at the Hi-Tone on February 8, you should go.  No, really, you need to hear them and see them and have a beer with them; you'll be glad you did.

Rant over!

My Larry King impersonation

Well, we're in the middle of PEAK out here and our document system is fried, so I can't do any letters for my customers.

That means I'm doing a version of the old USA TODAY column that Larry King used to do, who knows what the hell I'll say next.

Whyizzit that I get pissed at Hillary, but get pissed when Goopers attack her as well? I still want Edwards to win.....Speaking of Edwards, hats off to David Holt, who is putting his time and money where his heart is, in Burlington, IA on the ground for John Edwards. Holt rocks, and any Edwards folks in town should thank him when he gets back.

In the state, tomorrow, I want you all to go show some love for our beloved Newscoma, who is starting the Bigfoot Fund for lonely sasquatches in NW Tennessee; it also helps her in the fight to find zombies! She deserves whatever you care to give, I will be in for $7.95 at least! In all seriousness, she has been a stalwart for the good on this side of the state, not to mention having a truly entertaining blog.

Say, you ever think that maybe Arthur Blank may have lied to Bobby Petrino about the situation with the Falcons when he hired him? Like maybe he told him that the Vick situation was under control and that he was just the guy to make Vick the all-around QB the Falcons had been waiting to see? I can hear it now, "Don't worry, Bobby, the players will LOVE you and the FBI is just trying to get Vick to roll on his friends, it won't be a problem!" Under THAT scenario, doesn't Petrino's escape to Fayetteville seem more sensible? I thought so.

Speaking of Larry King, I first heard him on the radio in 1980 and thought he was an 80-year-old guy humped over a microphone THEN, how has he lasted so long? OY. Partially on that subject, if you are a Don Rickles fan, you have to catch Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project, which is on HBO this month, it's a great capture of his career and how wickedly gifted he is at needling and insulting people why making you laugh like hell. HE's 81, for heaven's sakes.....

I think the Mitchell Report is mostly hearsay, but I have to admit I am gleeful that Roger Clemens has been accused of being injected with PEDs while with the Yankees. He's still a Hall of Famer, as is the man you love to hate, Barry Bonds, but I grow tired of Bonds being the scapegoat for an institution-wide problem. MLB, the media, and everyone else turned a blind eye when all this started, and they want to blame it all on Bonds because he is a spoiled, selfish (and, did I mention, BLACK) pain in the ass. It's not the whole story, but race has a part of this, doncha know.......

If you see Bill O'Reilly, tell him I said HAPPY HOLIDAYS! BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

The older I get, the more temperature-sensitive I become, and I'm getting tired of the roller-coaster ride the weather has taken recently. I either want it to go to 70 and stay there, or drop to 20 and have a blizzard. No, a real humdinger, like the winter of '67 in Chicago and the Midwest, when we were buried under two feet of snow. Oh, I would like that WITHOUT an ice storm, please!

While I'm at it, how about some applause for Lauren, who keeps me sane, and has put up with a great deal from me this week, more than she should have, for which I am grateful. We share the January 5 birthday, and yes, I'm really seven years OLDER than she is, though I like to tease her otherwise.

I know he's working on his novel, for which we wait with bated breath, but I (and many others) have missed The Freedonian's musings, he rarely misses when he writes and provides a great perspective on Mid-South life and politics. If his novel is as good as his blog (which I expect) who knows how long we'll have him here.

Who out there still watches local news on 3, 5, 13 or 24/30? I try to, but other than 3 at 10, it's just awful. No one seems to understand that Whitehaven is NOT South Memphis, and vice versa, or know where anything is in general. Note, Anna Marie Hartman at 5 is still terrific, though.

While he has gotten on my nerves in the past, send some thoughts and prayers to Stuart Scott at ESPN; he is battling cancer while back on the air at the World Wide Leader. Keep fightin' dawg.....

Anyone else think that Mike Huckabee is the man to beat on the Gooper side? I do, he scares the hell out of me. The evangelicals will STAY HOME if it's not the Huckster, or vote for whoever turns out to be the Constitution Party nominee.

Loved Bill Giannini's comment on the blog the other day; like anyone's going to beat him in the GOP primary. I'll enjoy eating that Republican pizza, dude, but I'm still for Cheyenne.....

OK, that's it for now, remember to watch the football Tigers take on Howard Schnellenberger's Florida Atlantic Owls in the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl tomorrow night on ESPN at 7 o'clock. It's the final game for Martin Hankins, Joe Doss and the rest of the senior class, GO TIGERS!

Want to boo W with your friends? Look at this!

Bumped as a reminder..

TONIGHT, Drinking Liberally is throwing a State of the Union Watch Party at Sleep Out Louie's downtown from 7 PM until ?

Click on the SOTU Watch Party link for an invite, and more info; click on Sleep Out Louie's for a Yahoo! Map of the place. It will be a blast, so come join the fun!