The NYT is reporting that it’s infamous code word, “Client 9″ is now available in tee-shirt form.  How wonderful!

Down there at the bottom of a discussion of Patterson’s prospects of becoming governor, there is a fairly obvious hint that this is precisely what’s about to happen:

If Spitzer steps down, Paterson would move up - 13WHAM.com

Tuesday morning, Assemblyman Republican leader James Tedisco said he got a call from Paterson. Tedisco had been at odds with the Democratic Spitzer, but, Tedisco said Paterson asked if he would consider a fresh start.

It’s pretty obvious that Spitzer needs to step down, but to this moment, it has been less obvious that he would.  This phone call makes it seem like this may already be happening.  Indeed, speculation has been that Spitzer intended to use his stepping down as a part of a plea bargaining deal that would eliminate the need for him to be indicted.

After all the craziness happened yesterday afternoon, it seems like a good idea to pull the pieces of the Spitzer Strumpet Scandal and add my own thoughts. Things moved fast through the blog community and elsewhere, and there’s a lot of ground to cover. I’m sure I’ll miss some stuff, so don’t be afraid to hit me with corrections in the comments. But be warned: this is a very long roundup!

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And he pays quite a bit.  According to the New York Sun (h/t TAP), these girls charged as much as $5,500 an hour.  Here’s a question: wouldn’t a guy who can afford that much be better served spending that money on a trip to the Bunny Ranch, where it’s legal?  There’s apt to be less FBI agents tapping the phones out there. . .

H/t to TalkingPointsMemo.com, from whence I find the story.  Well, if we have any defense against the coming onslaught of Republican cries of foul play in the Governor’s Mansion, it may only be that we can hope these girls were at least of age and probably not found in public bathrooms.  The same cannot be said of all Republican scandals:

Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring - New York Times

Just last week, federal prosecutors arrested four people in connection with an expensive prostitution operation. Administration officials would not say that this was the ring with which the governor had become involved. But a person with knowledge of the governor’s role said that the person believes the governor is one of the men identified as clients in court papers.

Mark Hare of the D&C puts in what is, ideologically at least, a decent op-ed for the paper on city violence and the role schools must play in curbing it.  My quibble is in this question:

Three years ago, a blue ribbon task force called for, among other things, the recruitment of 10,000 mentors over 10 years to work with children in need. Where are they?

Well, Mark.  You’re a journalist.  Rather than asking us the question, why not get us the answer?

Amazing. You know you’ve gone too far when you have a nun arrested. Seriously? A fucking nun?

Yes, and the story is at the D&C, RochesterTurning, and our own Carla Palumbo’s blog. I suspect we’ll be hearing from Jon Greenbaum soon, as well.

Dirty deeds, done dirt cheap by our own Rochester Police Department Monroe County Sheriff’s Department (correction by Carla Palumbo, thank you!). Don’t they have some obligation to enforce our rights, too? I guess asking police to say no to Republicans is too much in our current America, but I’d hoped for better. Welcome to our police state, where Republicans set the rules, tap the phones and network connections, appoint the judges, appoint the prosecutors, decide for the governor what is and what is not enforcible at the DMV, rewrite fire codes and beat up nuns.

One of the most enduringly-popular posts on this website has been my coverage of the Sutherland lawsuit and their questionable business practices.  I say “questionable,” because I am not personally aware of evidence of their lack of ethics first-hand (Yes, Mickey, I’m expecting you to chime in about now!).  But on that post, an old-schooler - one who was on a first-name basis with Dilip Velodi back in the days when Suth was a measly 25-man operation - checks in with is thoughts on Sutherland’s business practices and where they come from.  Wonder of wonders, Dilip is the Alpha and the Omega of Suth’s frequently-alleged corruption.

It’s funny, but Tommy Mule on WCMF was just talking about some of this on my ride into work today. I’d meant to write this up last night, but didn’t get the time. . .

Really, what is it about steroids that is so bad? I don’t mean that they’re not bad, but I’m just wondering what it is about them that we object to so strenuously while not in the same moment objecting to any number of other chemicals players dope their bodies up with. There is an entire industry built around the idea of either making professional athletes stronger or patching up injuries so they can go back out onto the field and play hurt. Are we so sure what they’re doing is ethical simply because they might have eschewed the use of one chemical over another?

It is an interesting question once you begin to dig beneath the veneer of major league sports and get at the truth of what they’re all doing. Really, ethics are a very relative thing in a world where athletes push their bodies beyond breaking and corporations making billions actively encourage it so they can sell beer during the commercials. And it’s a fair question: are we just kidding ourselves about the steroids thing?
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Most people who read this blog have happened upon some article or another where I’ve stated that gun control law is not a huge do-it issue for me. I just happen to be of a mind that illegalizing something only sets it outside the law and therefore reduces our ability to control it. Think about all that pot you smoked in High School. But the new legislation passed by the Congress as a response to the Cho Virginia Tech shooting is something I can get behind.

There have been laws on the books for forty years saying you can’t own a handgun if you have a mental illness, but privacy law has prevented that law from being enforced for as long as it’s been in effect. I’m about as interested in privacy as I am disinterested in gun-control law, but even I acknowledge that something is amiss, here. But this is a tough nut to crack. The new bill seeks to close those gaps by specifically spelling out what records must be provided in order to purchase a gun.

BBC NEWS | Americas | US passes tighter gun control law

The new legislation aims to close those gaps: * it provides funds to improve NICS * sets out which mental health records should be reported * provides $375m (£187m) a year for five years for states and state courts to improve processing of mental health information * states failing to comply could lose federal funds * states with good records could receive financial incentives

So, this is less about a new law and more about focusing existing law properly. It even has the backing of the NRA, something I’m sure will make many people suspicious of it. Certainly, the concern is justifiable. But while there is language in the law allowing those who’ve overcome mental illnesses to be cleared to own a gun, I don’t see a lot here that speaks to the “lunatic fringe” of gun rights we’ve so become accustomed to the NRA representing.