My Americablog column from Friday in case you missed it:

The Week That Was 12/08/06

Another week. More preposterousness to report.

Well what do you know? Shockingly the "Ethics Committee" found that nobody is really to blame for Foley-trolling, except the honorable former first fornicator himself. Hoewever, being that he wasn't relying on Republican contributors like Enron, but the federal government for his pension, he'll still get his cold hard cash for retirement.

I mean have a heart, it's not easy defraying the cost of the multiple Rambo flicks, a year's supply of Lambskins and a vat of Banana Boat.

Although, in a just world, it'd be delivered to him by some of Vladamir Putin's friends in a bag of polonium.

Speaking of Republicans in Congress, if you really want to understand this coverup as well as the corporate-fellated, make-believe moral, "I must invade another country because I never got laid in high school" lives of these feudal-lords-in-fundamentalist-clothing, I give you Rep. Jack (-ass) Kingston.

Here is what this Georgia peach-for-brains had to say about the terrible new requirement Democrats are implementing in the Congress, that he actually, you know, work five days a week:

Keeping us up here eats away at families," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. "Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families -- that's what this says.

First of all, nice cheap-shot attack on all Democrats you Southern-fried, Deliverance clone. Second of all:

B-O-O-H-O-O

Yet, as you would guess from a statement like this, Jack-in-the-Box is stalwart supporter of easing the economic burden on married families and supporting them in any and all ways he can muster. That's probably why he opposes raising the minimum wage, universal healthcare, birth control, free childcare, family and medical leave, gay marriage, tax breaks for the middle class instead of Paris Hilton and Halliburton.

He does, however, support the government's right to intrude into private medical decisions made by a husband concerning his wife, as he did in the Terry Schiavo case. Luckily he'll now have an extra couple of days a week at work to propose other helpful legislation, when he isn't surfing the web for naked photos of Borat and speaking in a dialect that can only be called Southeastern trailer.

It still is stunning, however, the hypocrisy of these people. Lawsuits suck says Trent Lott, when it is time to vote for limits on jury awards to please his corporate benefactors. But the minute his house got wrecked because President Dumbo was playing with a shiny new set of dinner forks instead of being the Decider when Katrina hit, he joins a class action suit to get as much $$ as he can fit into his grubby little hands.

Which by the way are still aching from the multiple splinters he got from that burning cross he nailed on a lawn in Jackson last night.

Once again Democrats, we can't work with these people. From Kingston's ridiculous attack on Democrats as "anti-family" to Kingston and Lott's sheer hypocrisy, as many (including your humble narrator) predicted right after the election, they're not looking for compromise. It's easier to oppose things for other people they support for themselves. It is the essence of today's Republicanism.

Well that and lesbian daughters who have children because they can avoid many of the consequences of gay marriage bans their party passes.

If they want to support a progressive agenda, the more the merrier. Otherwise, in this man's opinion, here is how they are to be treated.

Now let me highly recommend two of the best progressive books I have read in a while, for Holiday Gifts (ha ha O'Reilly, I am bitch-slappping Christmas again). They are:

Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without The South; and Sweet Relief: The Marla Ruzicka Story. Yes, full disclosure, both of these authors are friends. And these are also two of the best progressive books I have read in a while, with Tom Schaller's work (the former) a great work of "strategery," and Jen Abrahmson's work (the latter) an amazing story about a little slice of humanity and compassion in Iraq and Afghanistan.