Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is making himself scarce for the National Republican Congressional Committee's annual fundraising award dinner with President Bush on June 18.

The Hill speculates that McCain is attempting to distance "himself from the man he wants to replace," but as we noted yesterday there's another attendee who McCain might want to avoid.

The dinner with President Bush is part of a two-day celebration for winners of the NRCC's "Republican Congressional Medal of Distinction." Springboro, Ohio, City Councilman Michael W. Hemmert will be one of the people accepting this distinction, despite two sets of drug charges (cocaine and marijuana) for which he's currently receiving treatment in lieu of conviction.

The NRCC declined to comment when we asked if Hemmert was still invited to the event.

Last Thursday, in Prince George's County, Maryland, a curious little drama began to unfold for Democratic state Senator Ulysses Currie.

On the morning of the 29th, the FBI raided the headquarters of Shoppers Food Warehouse (a D.C. area grocery chain). Shortly after, they showed up at Sen. Currie's house with a warrant. The FBI took boxes from Shoppers' headquarters and files from the senator's home. Apparently, Currie has been serving as a consultant for the company, and failed to mention his lobbying work to the State Ethics Commission -- even though state financial disclosure forms require "individual consulting activities" to be disclosed. Currie also participated in a vote to grant a liquor license to a Shoppers Food Warehouse in Takoma Park. Maryland state law required him to abstain from voting and publicly file a disclaimer saying why. No disclaimer was filed.

Sen. Currie, serving his fourth term in the Senate and head of the powerful Budget and Taxation Committee, seemed surprised. Though a Shoppers' spokesperson confirmed the Senator had been consulting for them, and the FBI confirmed that the raid was related to his work as a consultant, Currie said he had "no idea" what they were investigating, and that the pair of raids was the first indication of any problem: "We have a legal system. That's why we have a lawyer. Quite frankly, we don't know. That's why I'm asking the same questions of the lawyer," said Currie, who referred all questions to his lawyer: "The lawyer said I should limit my discussion with the media, with my wife, with my children, with my dog," His attorney, Dale Kelberman, declined to comment.

Shoppers Food Warehouse and the FBI are being similarly tight-lipped. The supermarket spokeswoman wouldn't explain what Currie had been doing for the company, beyond, "various consulting operations." According to a published report, Currie has received $7,500 in political contributions from Shoppers' parent company since 2004. On Friday, the Baltimore Sun, citing anonymous sources reported that the FBI was preparing to subpoena Currie's legislative records.

Through it all, Currie maintained his cool. "One, it doesn't help to be worried," Currie told reporters. "I think, two, you've got to be realistic to know they can always find something."

Finally. All it took was almost every Democrat in the state House supporting his impeachment and a new investigation by the state's inspector general that involved a raid of his office.

Relive the memories here.

Both The Columbus Dispatch and Cleveland Plain Dealer report that it's just a matter of time before Ohio AG Marc Dann steps down.

Apparently it wasn't the Dems impeachment filing that is driving him out, but Republicans' attempt to launch an investigation by Ohio's inspector general. He reportedly has offered to resign if Dem legislators blocked the bill: another investigation he does not need.

Last week, I did a complete rundown of the incredibly sordid case of Ohio Attorney General Mark Dann (D). Democrats, though united in their desire for Dann to resign, had not quite arrived at impeachment as the solution. As one lawmaker put it, it wasn't clear if Dann's transgressions had gone beyond "being stupid."

Well, with Dann continuing to refuse to step down, Democrats have united on impeachment as the solution. This morning, they filed articles of impeachment in Ohio's House, with 42 of the 45 Dems supporting the nine counts.

For the past several months, a mayoral race has been quietly unfolding on the Northern edge of Dallas County, in Carrollton, Texas. For incumbent Becky Miller, the main issues were transportation and air quality; opponent Ron Branson's was illegal immigration.

Miller was always a politician with an eccentric edge-- she rode a mustang in the 2007 Dallas Gay Pride parade. She liked young people, and she liked to party (at least, she used to). After she was elected in 2005, The Dallas Morning News wrote that Carrollton's incoming mayor spoke convincingly to teens about drugs, because she'd lived it: "'I used to be a backup singer. I sang with several different famous people,'" including Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne" she told them, and coke had been part of her rock 'n roll past.

This year, Miller seemed to be sailing to reelection. Then, Wednesday morning, the Morning News changed all that. The fight turned ugly-- and very weird.

The article revealed, in short, that Miller's tales about her past could not be corroborated. The big four knocked down by the Morning News: that Becky Miller had sung backup for Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne, that she'd attended Western Kentucky University, that she was once engaged to Eagles singer-songwriter Don Henley, and that she had a brother who fought and died in the Vietnam War.

Things first began to unravel for Miller when Branson made inquiries into the story he had heard about Miller's dead brother. When things didn't quite add up, Branson questioned Miller about it, and the Morning News picked it up. Miller declared, bizarrely, that the tale had all been part of a plot to ensnare her rival:

Mrs. Miller admitted falsely telling Mr. Branson that an 18-year-old killed in Vietnam in 1968 was her brother. She said she deliberately conveyed the name of that soldier, Randolph Sampson, through a friend because she hoped Mr. Branson would use it and she could "catch him in a lie, get him to push this forward" and sue him for slander.

Mr. Branson said that after learning that the Web site the wall-usa.com listed the Army private first class as a "Negro," he informed a supporter of Mrs. Miller, who is white.

Mr. Branson provided the mayor's e-mailed reply: "The information on his being Negro is obvious [sic] a mistake, and those things happen from time to time."

"I took that as verification that she was saying this was her brother," Mr. Branson said.

Mrs. Miller said she misinformed Mr. Branson "out of anger" and "bad judgment."

Of course, it doesn't help Miller's convoluted explanation that her father, Edward Sampson, told reporters that he did have a son, who was alive and living in Maryland-- and had never been in the service. First Miller put this down to Alzheimer's, but later she changed her mind again, adding that the soldier was "not my blood brother. ... My mother did not have him." Then, in a letter to the Morning News, in which she attempted to address the paper's accusations, she said enough was enough:

My personal losses during the Vietnam war are exactly that. No one should be expected to put their personal grief on public display during an election. I certainly never brought this up as an issue.

And what of Don Henley, Jackson, Linda, Bonnie, and Western Kentucky U? Don's longtime rep told the Morning News, "Don said he's never heard of her, doesn't know her, certainly was never engaged to her." The story almost comes full circle when you look back through the archive of the local paper, the Carrollton Leader, where Miller explained in a May, 2007 story on her remarkable past that she'd become a backup singer by way of her brother, who was a songwriter for the Eagles.

Western Kentucky University echoed Don's claim of total ignorance:

Mrs. Miller states on her campaign Web site that she attended Western Kentucky University. Laura Dilliha, student records specialist there, said the school has no record of her having been a student. Mrs. Miller's former husband said that he attended Western Kentucky but that Mrs. Miller did not.

Mrs. Miller said Monday that she attended the school for about two months in 1968.

Ms. Dilliha said Tuesday, "Any time after two weeks, we do have a record ... unless they were dropped by the university for failure to pay."

As for the singers, it seems fitting that Jackson's great hit of the late 70s-- the very time Miller placed herself to be touring with him-- was The Pretender.

Of the various explanations Miller employed, the best was kept for Jackson and Linda. When informed that the singers didn't remember employing anyone of Miller's description, nor did they remember Miller's name (or the last names of her first two husbands), Miller responded:"Maybe I was going by a different name. Did you think about that?" At first she declined to offer what the name or names might be ("I'm not going to tell you what they are. You have to find that out."), but finally she acquiesced: Pinky. None of the singers remembered that one either. Ronstadt added that she hadn't employed any female backup singers during the period Miller said she'd toured with her.

Unfortunately for Miller, the voters of Carrolltown seem to prefer that their mayor's colorful past be verifiable. Miller, who'd been ahead by nine points in early voting, lost reelection yesterday.

It's hard to say exactly where all the trouble started for Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann (D), because there's so much trouble.

But Dann's says he's not going anywhere. That's despite a virtually unanimous call from Ohio elected officials, including the Democratic governor, that he resign. Dann's resolve is firm. Now state lawmakers are mulling impeachment, though not everyone agrees on that course of action. As one Dem lawmaker put it, "I don't know whether we should impeach somebody for being stupid." So Dann might survive after all, the many, many very embarrassing details notwithstanding.

If you had to pinpoint the source of Dann's downfall, it would have to be Anthony Gutierrez.

Gutierrez is a heavy drinking lecher and the world's worst pickup artist. He is also an old friend of Dann's. So when Dann was elected the state's attorney general in 2006, he put his buddy Tony in charge of the AG's general services.

Dann also moved into a condo in Columbus with Gutierrez and another buddy, Leo Jennings III, who became Dann's communication director. The mens' wives did not move with them, remaining in faraway Youngstown.

And there they lived the bachelors' life without incident. Until September 10th.

That night, Gutierrez succeeded in convincing Cindy Stankoski, a 26 year-old staffer in the office, to go out drinking with him. They went to one bar, and then another, and then another. He drank Crown Royal and ordered Grey Goose vodka for her. The next step was to get her back to the condo. He bragged about the power he wielded in the AG's office and told her that his relatives back in Youngstown had Mafia ties. He rang up Dann, who urged Stankoski to come on over. They'd even get Hawaiian pizza for her. Gutierrez pushed, telling her that she'd be OK with "the big dogs." She relented.

At the condo, there was pizza and tequila. Another female staffer from the office, oddly enough, was there too. Stankoski felt awkward and very drunk. She sent a string of text messages to a friend: "im at marc dann's place..." then "pick me up" then "Girl...im in a weird situation.. iem w marc dann...." then "drunnnnk."

When she asked to lie down, Gutierrez directed her to his bedroom. She awoke several hours later to find three of her buttons on her pants undone. Gutierrez was lying besides her in his underwear.

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The last time we checked in with Kwame "Busted Is What You See!" Kilpatrick, he was denying all charges, saying he'd been punished by God, and continuing to serve as Mayor of Detroit. This week brought more of the same.

On Tuesday, the full slew of the hundreds of text messages exchanged between Kilpatrick and former Chief of Staff Beatty were released. And Kilpatrick? To quote another American fabulist, Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

The messages, written over four months in 2002 and 2003, were originally intended to be released at the time of Kilpatrick and Beatty's trial for retaliating against city police whistleblowers in August 2007. But as we've noted before, Kilpatrick's lawyers fought hard to keep them under wraps -- all in vain, because The Detroit Free Press got their hands on them. These new messages were also released to the Press as a result of the paper's lawsuit against the City of Detroit for more information on the mayor's secret $8.4 million settlement with the whistleblowers, a key part of which was to keep the text messages private.

The text messages run the gamut of evidence from indications that Beatty and Kilpatrick had been conspiring to orchestrate the removal of the whistleblowing police officers to lots and lots of sex talk... with a lot of LOL thrown in for good measure (the Kilpatricks still maintain a house on Leslie Street, in addition to the mayor's mansion):

But he has sobered up a bit since then. Late Tuesday, during a budget plan meeting with city residents he said:

"It's unfortunate that in Detroit only, you're guilty till proven innocent," he told the group of about 100. "There's a lot of bad information being presented in front of you, and hopefully by the end of this, we'll all see things pretty clearly."

Afterward, he told reporters: "I don't think that, at all, this is a smoking gun that everybody thought it would be."

And with that, everyone continues to await Kilpatrick's magical exoneration.

However, Detroit's hopes for a new mayor remain cloudy. One of the problems may be that the judge presiding over Kilpatrick's upcoming criminal trial, Ronald Giles, is a family friend and contributor to Kilpatrick's mayoral campaign. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy requested that he be removed from the case, but District Chief Judge Marylin Atkins refused to remove Giles, or any other judge.

In a nine-page decision, Atkins concluded there was no basis to remove Giles or any other judges.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy called Atkins' decisions "particularly disturbing" and "sadly incomplete."

In the annals of local muck, lawmaker assault is a consistent subcategory. Maybe it's the pressures of the job, but this week we meet yet another: Rep. Borris Miles (D-Houston).

Miles was indicted this past Monday for two counts of deadly assault. Though many in this category could be called impulsive, few appear quite so conflicted in heart and mind as Borris Miles.

Miles was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2006. His notoriety began only four months later when he was walking through the capitol with his two children and saw a couple of paintings he found offensive. The paintings were curated by an anti-death penalty group. The first depicted a lynching, the second an electrocution with the caption "Doing God's Work." Mile's response? He took them off the walls and hid them in his office. Why Miles freaked out is not quite clear. He later said that part of the problem was that the paintings were displayed without an explanatory note, and "As a black man, I was offended on the first one, and as a Christian on the second one."

The following July, Miles shot a man who was attempting to burglarize his construction site. Miles, a former police officer, had a license for the gun, and was never charged-- he was protected by a self-defense law. A law he opposed. The New York Times reported:

In July, Mr. Miles confronted a robber at his home construction site and shot him in the leg. No charges were filed, but he said he still opposed the new law. "We have a right to defend ourselves in our home. I support that and I always will," Mr. Miles said. But the law went too far, he said, by expanding the right to use deadly force in the workplace and one's automobile.

But apparently restraint is not much of a watchword for Miles.

In December 2007, Miles had a real red letter day.

In the afternoon, he brandished a pistol while threatening Texas Southern University regent Willard Jackson and his wife during a Rockets/Mavericks game at the Toyota Center.

In the evening, he forced his way into an invitation-only party of a business rival, and threatened another husband-wife pair. First brandishing his pistol again, then telling them that he is a "thug" and a "gangster," and then forcibly kissing the wife, then her husband:

Hall (the prosecution) said his client, party host David Harris, decided to press charges after a drunken Miles shocked guests with loud, profane language, grabbed his face and planted a Godfather-style "kiss of death" on his cheeks. Harris also said Miles handed him a pistol and declared, "You don't know what I'm capable of doing."

On January 14th, Miles' lawyer said that Miles "disagrees" with the reports of the event.

However, on Wednesday, he turned himself in. He's currently out on bail, facing up to $4,000 in fines and a year in jail. Unfortunately for Miles, his political career isn't in the balance, since earlier this year he lost in the Democratic primary to the former Texas rep he beat in 2006. Since the indictment, he's managed to keep quiet and has made no statement.

For days, Bruce Barclay's political career hung in the balance. The Republican commissioner of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, had been accused of rape -- by a man, no less -- and the police were bearing down. Barclay's lawyer issued a strong denial ("This accusation of rape is ludicrous It will be defended forever and is wrong."). But it was clear things were looking pretty dicey. Until... vindication! Well, sort of.

On March 31st, police, investigating the allegation of rape by the 20-year old Marshall McCurdy, obtained a warrant to search Barclay's home. They didn't find evidence of rape. But they did find videotapes of hundreds of sexual encounters with men that Barclay had filmed on high-tech surveillance cameras. The cameras were hidden inside AM/FM radios, motion detectors and intercom speaker systems, among other places. There was also one at his business office.

None of the subjects were aware they were being filmed and no permission had been obtained, Barclay admitted. According to a second warrant issued on April 9th, Barclay also admitted to hiring prostitutes on a weekly basis from the now-defunct website harrisburgfratboys.com.

On April 10th, the rape charges were dropped. One of the videos found during the search showed Barclay and McCurdy engaging in apparently consensual sex. As his lawyer put it:

"It is clear in my client's private life he has made an error of judgment. What is striking is this very same lack of judgment exonerates him from a rape allegation that wasn't going anywhere."

Sadly, his vindication was his undoing. Barclay was forced to resign.

And legally, Barclay's not quite out of the woods yet-- he's still facing possible charges for privacy violations and promoting prostitution. McCurdy, however, has been charged with making false reports to law enforcement authorities and unsworn falsifications to authorities. He's up for a possible 3-year prison stint and $7,500 in fines.

Nobody expects a corruption trial to be pretty. And in Chicago, the much-anticipated trial of Tony Rezko -- political fundraiser, business man, and thorn in Barack Obama's side -- has not disappointed.

The star witness is Stewart Levine of Chicago, a former Republican Party fundraiser, former millionaire businessman, and former serious coke head (and LSD and Quaaludes and marijuana and kaetamine and crystal meth) now supposedly working for a messenger service -- though he hasn't held a 9-5 job since 1976.

In the spring of 2004, Rezko and Levine allegedly teamed up to skim money off the top of two state pension boards Levine served on (one of them a teacher's retirement fund no less). At the same time, the two also used their influence to pressure outside firms wanting to do business with the funds to give them thousands in kickbacks and bribes.

Levine flipped in 2006, making him the centerpiece of the prosecution's case, the man to describe to jurors how Rezko was "the man behind the curtain, pulling the strings" as one prosecutor put it. Rezko's lawyers, meanwhile, argue that Levine just wants to reduce his own sentence. He's hoping to get 5 and a half years for his cooperation. Must have sounded better than 30 to life.

When he rolled out the indictment against Rezko, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald proclaimed that Tony Rezko and Stuart Levine had "put the word out loud and clear: you have to pay to play in Illinois." Well, at least this much has become clear since Levine took the stand: paying to play is one thing, playing with a full deck is another one entirely.

Levine decidedly makes for a more convincing defendant than star witness. Some gems from the cross-examination:

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"Damn that. Never busted. Busted is what you see!"

Most people would have thrown up their hands by now. But not Kwame Kilpatrick, who's never busted and seems determined to remain mayor of Detroit until that final gavel falls. He insists, despite the evidence that keeps mounting against him, that he’s still the person best suited to be mayor, because he believes with absolute certainty that he’s on a mission from God.

Handsomely dressed in dark suits and accompanied by a team of lawyers, the mayor and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty, were booked and fingerprinted and posed for their mug shots last Monday, the day before their arraignment. For the apparent contradictions between their sworn testimony and the messages they texted each other on their cell phones and the unwarranted dismissal of three cops who they feared were about to disclose their illicit love affair, Kilpatrick was charged with conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice, obstruction of justice, two counts of misconduct in office and four counts of perjury.

Beatty’s seven counts were similar. She resigned in January after the incriminating text messages were published by the Detroit Free Press.

But Kilpatrick remained positive after being arraigned on Tuesday. “I look forward to complete exoneration,” he said.

He appears to face an uphill battle. In her news conference announcing the charges against the mayor, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy accused him of ruining the lives of three former police officers and then buying their silence with $8.4 million of the taxpayers’ money in a secret legal agreement.

“[T]he justice system was severely mocked, and the public trust trampled on,” she said. Worthy scolded Kilpatrick, 37, as one would a wayward child:

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Anybody who's watched Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for any period of time won't be surprised at his reaction to today's indictment.

Let this be a lesson to all politicians everywhere: if you're going to carry on an affair, do not do it via text messages over government-issued cell phones. And then don't deny the affair under oath.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, an All Muck Is Local threepeat (here, here and here), will forever be a shining example.

And just now, the local prosecutor unveiled a 12-count indictment against the sitting mayor and his former chief of staff. Kilpatrick is due to make a statement later this morning. Something tells me that God doesn't want him to step down. After all, in the immortal words of Kilpatrick, "Damn that. Never busted. Busted is what you see!"

Update: Here's more detail on that indictment from the AP.

Called to a special session last Thursday, the General Assembly of North Carolina took little more than an hour to expel eight-term Democratic Rep. Thomas Wright from the state legislature. With all but five members in attendance, a stunning majority of the House agreed 109-5 that the allegations of ethical misconduct— hiding or mishandling $340,000 in loans and campaign funds— warranted the first removal of a member since 1880. Despite speculation that the Legislative Black Caucus, which includes 20 Democrats, would back their former chairman, the vote to expel handily exceeded the required two-thirds majority of 80. As soon as the vote was concluded, the House sergeants-at-arms wasted no time in escorting Wright out the door.

The chairman of the ethics committee, Rep. Rick Glazier (D), told the assembled lawmakers that in the past eight years Wright had filed 22 erroneous campaign finance reports that he never bothered to correct.

“Forty percent of the dollars Representative Wright received for seven years was not reported," Glazier said. "In the end, there is nary a substantive [campaign reporting law] in the statutes that was not violated repeatedly by Representative Wright.”

According to the AP, the bipartisan ethics committee found that “Wright failed to properly disclose $180,000 in campaign contributions, deposited $8,900 of charitable donations into his personal bank account, and persuaded a state official to write a bogus letter about a state grant that, according to testimony, Wright used to take out a bank loan for a foundation he led.”

Wright could be re-elected and reclaim his seat so long as he’s not convicted of a felony in his criminal trial, which begins on March 31. Wright decided not to counter the charges made against him by the House ethics committee in order not to compromise his defense in court, where he plans to contest not only the charges of fraud and obstruction of justice, but also his expulsion.

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No one can say that Texas Republican staffer Todd Gallaher didn't give 110 percent. Unfortunately for Gallaher, however, his efforts weren’t appreciated.

Last Monday he was forced to resign from his post on the staff of state Sen. Bob Deuell (R-TX) because of the uproar caused by his scheming. And on Friday the Texas attorney general’s office confirmed that Aransas County Sheriff Mark Gilliam filed a complaint claiming that Gallaher was behind the smear campaign against him in the March 4 Republican primary.

Gilliam, the incumbent, was running against County Constable Bill Mills. The sheriff says he received e-mails before the election threatening him to “back off” or be publicly humiliated.

Subsequently, the voters of Aransas County received pictures of Gilliam carousing shirtless at a party, mooning the guests and pretending to kiss a man.

The pictures were authentic, if 18 years old, but the sender’s e-mail address, repjuangarcia@hotmail.com, was clearly deceptive. The voters assumed it belonged to Democratic state Rep. Juan Garcia, whose district includes Aransas County. When Garcia learned of the e-mails from callers who had received them, his IT staff tracked them down from the Capitol to Sen. Deuell’s office to Gallaher’s state computer. (Gilliam also traced the e-mails he received to Deuell’s office.)

But Gallaher denies the charge that he posed as Garcia. He was using an identity he created long ago, a “super hero-like caricature” he named “Republican Jaun Garcia” [sic], he says. Though Gallaher has produced sketches of the cartoon character from the 90s, showing that the name is “Jaun” and not “Juan,” the name was spelled correctly in the e-mail address.

And it appears that Gallaher was not working pro bono. An examination of campaign finance records revealed that Mills, Gilliam’s successful opponent, paid between $17,000 and $11,000 (accounts vary) to a political consultant in Austin whose address is Gallaher’s post office box.

Gilliam isn’t contesting his loss in the primary, but he’s charging Gallaher with using state property with the intent of “harming or defrauding another,” a criminal offense under the Texas Penal Code. “This is an allegation of blackmail and of serious criminal acts,” he said.

Gallaher’s troubles don’t end there.

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Charged with corruption, fraud and conspiracy, Sharpe James (D) allegedly greased the way for co-defendant Tamika Riley to buy nine city lots. James, 72, and Riley, 38, don't deny having had an extra-marital affair. Riley, a publicist who once owned a boutique, turned the properties she purchased from the city around quickly, making a nice return of $665,000 on her investment of $46,000. In the most extreme case, after she bought a lot for $2,000 in August, 2001, she sold it less than four months later for $130,000. Riley is charged with tax evasion, in addition to fraud and conspiracy.

In his testimony, former housing director Basil Franklin reminded the jury about the redevelopment program for the South Ward, a depressed area of the city. When the Newark City Council approved the plan in 1998, it made no stipulation for advertising the program or public bidding.

According to Franklin, qualified builders were able to buy land for as little as $1 a square foot. But it didn't take long for the program to fall apart, as who you knew, not what you knew, became the only qualification.

"There was no professional or legal vetting of anybody," Franklin said. Instead, builders had to be recommended by members of the City Council and the mayor's circle.

Riley's purchases of city property were approved by the City Council even though some of the applications lacked the necessary paperwork, such as project proposals, preliminary site plans, estimated total development costs or arrangements for financing.

Laying the ground for their charge that James did favors for his mistress at city expense, prosecutors called several of the former mayor's bodyguards to testify about the services they performed for Riley. One of them, Adelino Benavente, haltingly recalled being authorized by the mayor to pay $409.47 for an air conditioner, pick up and install it for Riley at her home.

James didn't limit his favors to his girlfriends.

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Facing the very real possibilities of removal from office, conviction of perjury, disbarment and imprisonment, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick remains confident that he’s “the best person for the job.”

In 2001, then-state Democratic House floor leader Kwame Kilpatrick told an interviewer that he was on a mission from God. The MetroTimes reported that Kilpatrick believed “the Almighty intends for him to become mayor of Detroit, where he hopes to lead the city into the promised land of prosperity.”

He became mayor of Detroit. But the mission now seems FUBAR. As all the world now knows, Kilpatrick lied under oath in order to cover up an extra-marital affair (and that's only the half of it).

At their meeting next Tuesday, the Detroit City Council will consider calling for Kilpatrick’s resignation. Their independent attorney, Bill Goodman, is studying the law to determine whether the council may evict the mayor if he hasn’t been convicted as a felon.

But the governor may remove any elected official accused in a sworn statement of official misconduct or willful neglect of duty. Last Thursday, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm urged the council to resolve the scandal as quickly as possible.

“None of this is good for the city or for the state," she said. "There is no way you can spin any of this to be positive."

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In an election season when the electorate is passionately debating the relative merits of change, experience and straight talk, Milwaukee’s 6th District gave their one-term alderman, Michael McGee, a plurality of their votes in a 9-candidate race last Tuesday. He will face Milele Coggs in the aldermanic runoff in April.

What’s so unusual?

McGee is running his re-election campaign from his jail cell. He was arrested last May, and is still behind bars. Charged with 12 counts of election fraud, bribery and contempt in the state court and nine federal counts, which include bribery and extortion, he faces a theoretical, though unlikely, 115-year sentence if convicted of all the felonies. Though he posted bond on the state charges, the judge in the federal court is holding McGee without bail because he was allegedly intimidating witnesses even from prison in order to influence their testimony. McGee could take office from jail if elected, because his trial dates are after this April’s runoff. If convicted as a felon, he would be removed from office.

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Motown just keeps on giving -- to journalists, if not to its citizens, who now are on the hook for $9 million and counting, thanks to Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s futile determination to keep his office affair from going public.

With the scandal still raging, the city council is clearly on edge. All we know for sure about last Wednesday’s city pension board meeting is that two of its members had to be restrained. But as for who was assaulting whom... both sides have their witnesses. The Detroit papers have been straining to keep up.

According to Sheila Kneeshaw, a trustee on the board, City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers came late to the meeting and took umbrage at mayoral assistant DeDan Milton’s refusal to consider an issue that had been discussed before her arrival.

"There was threats made. There was vulgar language," Kneeshaw said. "And it wasn't DeDan Milton's fault. [Conyers] was ranting and raving."

David Clark, chair of Detroit's General Retirement System, agreed.

"She ran at him," Clark said. "She told him she would get a gun if she had to and that she has four brothers and they would whup his a-- if she asked them." (Apparently Clark did not recall Conyers's mentioning whether her husband, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), would participate in the ass whuppin'.)

Another witness saw it differently.

Sam Riddle, Conyers’s chief of staff, asserted that Conyers, not Milton, was the victim. She was reacting to Milton’s profanity.

"Monica is no shrinking violet," Riddle said. "He starts yelling at her. She responds aggressively and in street lingo. It was on."

Milton filed a police report the following day in which he charged that Conyers "threatened to shoot [Milton] with her gun" and made "several aggressive movements" toward him "in a threatening manner." The report said that Conyers also threatened to "have my brothers [mess] you up."

It's not clear what the charged crime would be. Apparently the police filed it under "harassing communications."

Riddle claims that Conyers never threatened to shoot Milton.

"What she said was: 'I've got a bigger gun than your gun, my husband,'" Riddle said. "She was talking about a political gun." So apparently the Chairman was invoked.

Conyers responded to Milton's report by filing a police report of her own a few hours after he did. In it she accused him of being the aggressor. But she also reported that the two had made up in a back room before the meeting was over.

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It was still dark last Wednesday morning when the cleaning crews pulled into the alley behind a Washington, D.C., mall, but not so dark that they didn’t notice some unusual items left for them to pick up with the rest of the trash. The two 3-foot-high servers were clearly labeled “PROPERTY OF D.C. OFFICE OF TAX AND REVENUE.”

Now, who puts a server out on the street? More to the point, who would dump servers belonging to an agency that’s in the midst of a federal investigation of what’s described as the biggest corruption scandal in the city’s history? (See our artful rendering of what it might have looked like above.)

The garbage collectors notified Melvin Barnes, the building maintenance man.

“At first, I was thinking, ‘Man, who's putting this stuff here?’” said Barnes. “But when I saw the labels of the tax office, with all this stuff going on, I was like, ‘Uh oh.’”

“All this stuff”—the alleged embezzlement of at least $20 million in a money-laundering scheme and its investigation— has been front-page news in Washington for months. Two employees of the city tax office are among the ten people who’ve been arrested in connection with the scandal.

The former supervisor of the tax office, Harriette Walters, has been charged with approving hundreds of fraudulent property tax refund checks made out to to phony companies and handing them over to a group of her relatives and friends. She allegedly instructed her co-conspirators to cash the checks at a Baltimore branch of Bank of America, where Walter Jones, the former assistant bank manager of the branch, would accept them. In one month alone, three bogus checks totaling $1.1 million were cashed through Bank of America. Jones was arrested last December.

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How do you hold on to office after a sex and perjury scandal goes kablooey?

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick seems to be a believer in the say you're real sorry and hope no other damning revelations emerge strategy. But that hasn't been working so well, as the scandal seems to have spurred new curiosity about the past. And the past hasn't disappointed.

Last Wednesday night he, accompanied by his wife, gave a live radio and TV address to the city from a room in his church with no audience or press allowed.

“I’m sorry,” he said, apologizing for “the embarrassment and disappointment the events of the past few days have caused you.”

Kilpatrick spoke about his personal trials and the suffering of his family, but said nary a word about the $9 million that his attempt to cover up his affair cost the city. He did, however, promise to continue “in charge of the city…. I would never quit on you.”

Despite his heartfelt contrition, the Wayne County Prosecutor, Kym Worthy, on Friday began an investigation into possible criminal charges against Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff/mistress Christine Beatty.

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On Thursday morning, Detroit’s Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D) and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty -- and all of Detroit, courtesy of the Detroit Free Press -- woke up to find the irrefutable evidence of the love affair they had both denied under oath:

Beatty asked the mayor, on Sept. 12, 2002, if she could "come and lay down in your room until you get back?"

The next morning Kilpatrick, referring to his bodyguards, wrote: "They were right outside the door. They had to have heard everything."

Beatty replied: "So we are officially busted!"

"Damn that," Kilpatrick responded. "Never busted. Busted is what you see!"

Worse than the humiliation and embarrassment at the very public disclosure of both their affair and the unraveled coverup, is, yes, the real possibility of getting "busted" on a perjury charge, a felony. If charged and convicted, Kilpatrick, a lawyer, could be disbarred, would be removed from office, and could even face up to 15 years of jail time. Beatty, a law student, would have to find a new career.

The other big loser in this tawdry affair is the city of Detroit.

The mayor has cost Detroit taxpayers more than $9 million to date, because he was sued as a public official. Many are calling for the resignation of “a mayor with so much potential squandered on the keyboard,” a “talented” and “charismatic ” politician - “so knowledgeable on policy, so lacking in discipline.”

It all started back in April 2003 when one of the mayor’s bodyguards, Harold Nelthrope, blew the whistle on two of the cops on the mayor’s security detail; they were fraudently padding their expenses, wrecking city cars and drinking and partying while on duty. Nelthrope also passed along rumors about a bash at the mayor's residence involving a stripper. Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown began to investigate. Two weeks later, he was out of a job.

Three weeks later, Brown and Nelthrope sued the mayor and the city, claiming they were fired in retaliation for investigating the mayor’s security team. Later that year, another bodyguard, Walt Harris, sued the city and the mayor, making the same charges as the other two. He also alleged that the mayor retaliated against him because he reported that the mayor was cheating on his wife with Beatty and several other women.

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