Politicians Behaving Badly, An Occasional Series

What the what?

Embattled state Rep. Todd Courser, R-Lapeer, sent his own recording early Monday morning, saying he sent a false e-mail about paying for gay sex because he was being blackmailed.

The long and rambling recording blames his former staffers, Ben Graham, Josh Cline and Keith Allard, for colluding with the Lansing "mafia" establishment to bring him down. And it didn't work, he said, because he's decided to stay in office to expose the "political shenanigans" that are happening in Lansing.

"The e-mail was put in motion to disrupt the blackmailer and give me some clues as to the surveillance of my life. It was all done in a pressure cooker and ...it put me in a situation where a bad choice was the choice that I made," he said, noting the alleged blackmailer's intent was to get him to resign.

"But to change the country, men and women must be able to stand unafraid even when they're a broken messenger. And I'm a certainly a broken messenger," he said in the recording. "I have chosen to stay and make them play their hand. I think it is absolutely necessary to have these clandestine operations to control public officials be exposed. So I have refused to leave quietly and have decided that these efforts really need to come out."

Now, the backstory here, if I get this right, is that Courser was having an affair with another state rep, Cindy Gamrat, also a Republican.

The gay email seems to have been an attempt to find out who his blackmailer was.

I actually buy that, though it seems absurd. Given that we know (or we think we know) he was having an extramarital heterosexual affair with a fellow representative, the gay email thing doesn't seem real. I can see this as an attempt to get the blackmailer to publicize a false claim, so he could then say "Oh look at this guy, he just makes silly crap up."

Though.. I don't know how you do that when the email is in the blackmailer's hands.

Eh, I try not to get all judgey about this kind of thing. It happens.

Meanwhile, a high-ranking assistant to Obama arrested for shooting at her boyfriend.

Or, shooting in his basic direction. He wasn't hit. I'm sure she'll say it was a warning shot.

She suspected he was cheating, and she demanded he give her access to his phones.

JWF's digest is great and all you need to read, but I have to cite the original story.

Police say she summoned her boyfriend, who was not identified, by text message, and the two had sex. Afterward, according to the criminal complaint, Singletary went to the man’s car with him and accused him of dating other women. Inside the car, Singletary allegedly took the man’s cellphones and his service weapon, demanding passwords to unlock messages stored on the phones.

"You taught me how to use this," Singletary allegedly told the man. "Don't think I won't use it."

Police say Singletary pointed the gun in the victim's direction and fired one round.

He ran off and called the cops.

Now you give me your passwords. Don't make me shoot you here, bae.

Just a little AoS Loveservation: If your boyfriend would rather take a bullet than show you his texts, he's got some sexts in those texts.

posted by Ace at 02:30 PM

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