Ex-Senator Larry Craig back in the news: that bathroom incident was part of my Senate duties

By Jack Brummet, G.O.P. Sex Scandals Editor

Ex-Senator Larry Craig

Ex-Republican U.S. Sen. Larry Craig is attempting to derail a federal election lawsuit against him by laughably arguing that his notorious July 11, 2007, Minneapolis airport bathroom bust in a sex-sting operation was actually part of The Senate's business.  The  Federal Election Commission argues that he owes $217,000 in campaign funds he used to pay for his criminal defense. 

The FEC sued Craig, charging that he converted the campaign money to personal use by spending it on his legal defense after he was accused of soliciting sex in a Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport bathroom. 

"Not only was the trip itself constitutionally required, but Senate rules sanction reimbursement for any cost relating to a senator's use of a bathroom while on official travel,"  Craig's lawyer wrote in documents Thursday.

At the time of his initial arrest, an undercover officer said Craig tapped his feet and signaled under a stall divider that he wanted sex.  Some other ATIT coverage of The Senator around the time of "the incident."

Another Republican cork soaker takes a fall: Senator Larry Craig busted in the men's room scouting for man on man action

Go Larry Craig, go! Idaho Republican Senator decides to stand tall

Idaho Statesman unearths more dirt on Senator Larry Craig (with bonus audio clips)

Sen. Larry Craig to be inducted into Idaho Hall of Fame

Dear Senator Larry Craig: Send me an autographed photo, and stay the course!

Senator Larry Craig (yes, he's still a Senator) to skip GOP Convention in St. Paul

Senator "Wide Stance" Larry Craig defends his men's room actions and swears "I am not gay" - Bonus content: Link to a latrine debacle reenactment

G.O.P. rethinks policies on gays in light of recent events

West Dakota Senator Hoolihan endorses Obama, urges split ticket with Larry Craig

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POTUS and golf carts!

By Mona Goldwater, Society Editor

Our Presidents golf a lot.  And as you can see from these photos, they also like to ride around in golf carts.  Enjoy this small selection of Presidents riding around in gold carts with their friends, familes, and other Presidents.

W

George, Sr. with Tiger Woods

George, Sr. with Sen. John McCain

President Jimmy Carter with President Anwar Sadat

HST with Winston Churchill

Presidents Clinton and Obama

Ike

President and Laura Bush with Premier Karzai

JFK and kids

President and Laura Bush in Golf Cart 1

President Bush with S. Korea President Lee

RMN with pal Jackie Gleason

BHO

The President and First Lady

RWR

RWR with Prime Minister Thatcher

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Nils Lofgren and Grin perform "Rusty Gun"

By Jack Brummet, Music Editor

I heart Nils Lofgren. He started the band Grin not long after he worked on Neil Young's first album with Crazy Horse.  Grin never got any traction and although every one of their releases was critically acclaimed, their records stiffed, but me and my friendos latched on and loved them.  After Grin fell apart, Nils did some solo work, and then joined forces with that mighty juggernaut Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, where he has played every since.  He joined Young's band when he was 17, and played piano and guitar on After The Gold Rush and on the album I consider Young's masterpiece, Tonight's The Night.  I love this guy.  I think I need to post a clip of some of his E Street stage antics (e.g., performing a somersault on stage whilst playing a solo).  The Boss and the E Street band are back on the road this summer, and will probably be lining up some fall dates stateside. . .

On this song, it must be Nils playing the accordion.  I know he learned to play one when he was five years old., and studied it for ten years.  He's been a member of The E Street Band, with their ups and downs, since 1984 (he replaced Steven Van Zandt [a/k/a The Sopranos Silvio Dante], although Little Steven returned and now he AND Nils are permanent member of the band).  TMI?

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Freedom In Peril, a dated (and chilling-for either side!) but well-made piece of NRA propaganda

By Jack Brummet, Bill of Rights Editor

"Freedom In Peril - Guarding the second amendment in the 21st century"  is a pamphlet put out by the National Rifle Association.  The propaganda first appeared in 2006.  It is beautifully designed and illustrated.  It gives you a pretty clear picture of just where the NRA stands (as if you didn't know already).  Without going into particulars on the merits of the second amendment debate, I will say events in the last few years (say, since about 1968) and the arms debate makes me remember Kris Kristofferson's lyric:

"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose"

You can read the pamphlet here.

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Illustration from the NRA propaganda pamphlet "Freedom In Peril"

click to enlarge

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An assortment of strange photos of modern U.S. Presidents

by Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor


Oddly enough, seven of these photographs in our archives star President George W. Bush. . .

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Photo: President Clinton (a/k/a Hand Gestures No. 76)

by Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

I am not sure of the provenance of this photograph.  I just hope it wasn't taken at one of his Monica Lewinsky press conferences. . .

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The Lake Of Fire

A man died and found himself in limbo, waiting in a long, long line for judgment. He noticed that some souls were allowed to march right through the pearly gates. Others were led over to Satan, who threw them into a lake of fire. Every so often, instead of hurling a condemned soul into the lake of fire, Satan would toss him or her off to one side.

After watching Satan do this several times, the men's curiosity got the better of him. He strolled over to The Great Deceiver:

"Excuse me, there, Your Darkness," he said. "I'm waiting in line for judgment, and I couldn't help wondering why you toss some people off to the side instead of flinging them into the fires of hell with the others?"

"Ah," Satan said with a grin. "Those people are from Seattle. I'm just letting them dry out so they'll burn."

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Mitt Romney's tax problem leads Jeb Bush to clear his calendar for the next four years

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

Mitt Romney's mounting tax return problem have led to many calls to Jeb Bush this week.  "Jeb? Do you have any plans for the next four years?  We think we may need to go with a designated hitter. . ."

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Happy 70th birthday to Jerry Garcia

By Jack Brummet, Music History Editor


Today would have been Jerry Garcia's 70th birthday. . .if only.  Here is a photo from the last time I saw him, with the Grateful Dead, at Seattle's Memorial Stadium on May 26, 1995.  He died two months later, at the age of 53.

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Faces No. 305 - Stories

Drawings/stories by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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Poem: The Curtain

By Jack Brummet

1
There are pockets of sanity
Still scattered among us,

And light years between those
Shining Seas of Tranquility.

2
The task we face each day
Is keeping the tiller

Aimed away from
The Sea of Madness.

3
The silver rain

Is drawn like a curtain

Between us

And God.

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ATIT Reheated: [deceased] celebrity cookoff number three - President Eisenhower vs. Linda McCartney

By Jack Brummet, Food and wine editor


President Dwight D. Eisenhower, took office eight months before I was born and was the first President of all 50 states.  He gave this nearly 900 word recipe to the Women of Christ Episcopal Church, back in the 1950's. 



We have to give Ike a mulligan. Back then, you could still call a soup made with a beef bone ("the bigger the better"), chicken parts, and "a couple pounds of ordinary soup meat, either beef or mutton" a vegetable soup. Linda McCartney's soup, on the other hand, is even vegan. You do have to give Ike a point for using such a hip ingredient as nasturtiums. Linda McCartney's soup is magnificent: the best I've had. Her much briefer recipe follows DDE's. Ike was well-known for his cooking and grilling, particularly for his steaks, cornmeal flapjacks, and his "vegetable soup."

First up, Ike's recipe, verbatim:

"The best time to make vegetable soup is a day or so after you have had fried chicken and out of which you have saved the necks, ribs, backs uncooked. (The chicken is not essential, but does add something.)

"Procure from the meat market a good beef soup bone, the bigger the better. It is a rather good idea to have it split down the middle so the marrow is exposed. In addition, buy a couple pounds of ordinary soup meat, either beef or mutton, or both. 

"Put all this meat, early in the morning, in a big kettle. The best kind is heavy aluminum, but a good iron pot will do almost as well. Put in also the bony parts of the chicken you have saved. Cover it with water, something on the order of 5 quarts. Add a teaspoon of salt, a bit of black pepper and, if you like, a touch of garlic (one small piece). If you don’t like garlic put in onion. Boil all this slowly all day long. Keep on boiling until the meat has literally dropped off the bone. If your stock boils down during the day, add enough water from time to time to keep the meat covered. When the whole thing has practically disintegrated pour out into another large kettle through a colander. Make sure the marrow is out of the bones. Let this drain through the colander for quite awhile as much of the juice will drain out of the meat. (Shake the colander to help get out all the juices.

"Save a few of the better pieces of meat just to cut up a little bit in small pieces to put into your soup after it is done. Put the kettle containing the stock you now have in a very cool place, outdoors in the winter or in the ice box; let it stand all night and the next day until you are ready to make your soup.

"You will find that a hard layer of fat has formed on top of the stock which can usually be lifted off since the whole kettle full of stock has jelled. Some people like a little bit of the fat left on and some like their soup very rich and do not remove more than about half of the fat

'Put the stock back into your kettle and you are ready to make your soup.
"In a separate pan, boil slowly about a third of a teacupful of barley. This should be cooked separately since it has a habit, in a soup kettle, of settling to the bottom and if your fire should happen to get too hot it is likely to burn. If you cannot get barley, use rice, but it is a poor substitute. 

"One of the secrets of making good vegetable soup is not to cook any of the vegetables too long. however it is impossible to give you an exact measure of the vegetables you should put in because some people like their vegetable soup almost as thick as stew, others like it much thinner. Moreover, sometimes you can get exactly the vegetables you want, other times you have to substitute. Where you use canned vegetables, put them in only a few minutes before taking the coup off the fire. If you use fresh ones, naturally they must be fully cooked in the soup. The things put into the soup are about as follows:

"1 quart of canned tomatoes1/2 teacupful of fresh peas. If you can’t get peas, a handful of good green beans cut up very small can substitute2 normal sized potatoes, diced into cubes of about 1/2 inch size2 or 3 bunches of good celery1 good sized onion, sliced3 nice-sized carrots diced about the same size as potatoes1 turnip diced like the potatoesa handful of raw cabbage cut into small piecesYour vegetables should not all be dumped in at once. The potatoes, for example, will cook more quickly than the carrots. Your effort must be to have them all nicely cooked, but not mushy, at about the same time.
"The fire must not be too hot but the should should be kept bubbling.

"When you figure the soup is about done, put in your barley, which should now be fully cooked, add a tablespoonful of prepared gravy seasoning and taste for flavoring, particularly salt and pepper, and if you have it, some onion salt, garlic salt, and celery salt. (If you cannot get the gravy seasoning, use one teaspoonful of Worcestershire Sauce.) 

"Cut up the few bits of meat you have saved and put a handful in the soup.

"While you are cooking the soup do not allow the liquid to boil down too much. Add a bit of water from time to time. If your stock was good and thick when you started, you can add more water than if it was thin when you started.

"As a final touch, in the springtime when the nasturtiums are green and tender, you can take a few nasturtium stems, cut them up in small pieces , boil them separately as you did the barley, and add them to your soup."

And now, Linda McCartney's justly famous vegetable soup:

Linda McCartney eventually married one of my generation's great heroes: Paul McCartney. She was a photographer, and later a highly-regarded vegetarian cook, and food entrepreneur.

This recipe is from her excellent cookbook, Linda McCartney's Home Cooking (Arcade Publishing, 1989). When I make this soup, I only change a couple of things: I add a couple more cloves of garlic (I'm an addict), I peel the potatoes, and I probably use a heavier hand with the parsley and thyme. The recipe doesn't mention it, but after you add the tomatoes, I usually only cook the soup about five more minutes. I like this recipe because it tastes great and it is open-ended. However, she got it right, so you don't want to not stray too far from her instructions.

Linda Macca's Vegetable Soup

Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
2 cups trimmed (greens included), cleaned and sliced leeks
2 cups chopped celery
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 1/2 cups unpeeled, sliced carrots
1 cup shredded cabbage
2 cups unskinned cubed new potatoes
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon fresh parsley
6 cups vegetable stock (fresh or canned)
8 medium tomatoes or 1 16-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

1. Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium flame, and saute the onions, leeks, celery and garlic for 5 minutes. Do not brown the garlic.

2. Add the carrots, cabbage and potatoes. Stir well. Add the thyme, rosemary and parsley. Cover with vegetable stock and simmer, covered, for 1 hour. Stir occasionally, adding water if evaporation is excessive.

3. If you are using fresh tomatoes, place them on top of the simmering liquid for about 2 minutes, or until their skins can be easily peeled away. Remove the tomatoes with a slotted spoon, and when they are cool enough to handle, remove the skins. Gently crush the whole skinned tomatoes and stir them into the soup. If you are using canned tomatoes, stir them, liquid and all, into the soup.

4. Season to taste. Serve hot.

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Faces No. 304 - Contact Sheet

Drawings by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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Where I've traveled 1971-2012

By Jack Brummet, Travel Editor


Where I've traveled from when I first really traveled in 1971 until last week.

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