CHICAGO (AP) — A longtime Republican district fell to the Democrats Saturday when a scientist snatched former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s congressional seat in a closely watched special election.

Democrat Bill Foster won 52 percent of the vote compared to 48 percent for Republican Jim Oberweis. With 564 of 568 precincts reporting, Foster had 50,947 votes to Oberweis’ 46,125.

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Men who wanted to grow up to be ball boys must run most cable newsrooms in the country. How else can one explain the never-ending coverage of Congressional hearings into whether Roger Clemens had steroids and HGH injected into his ass at some point in his career? The fact that so many (male) members of Congress have already spent years thinking about Clemens’ ass is bad enough, but now the media seems to think regular news viewers give a damn. If politicians can smoke marijuana and do cocaine without receiving any scrutiny nowadays, why, exactly, is this a story?

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“Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today sent a complaint to the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District for Louisiana and the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, asking for an investigation into whether Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) violated federal bribery law by including a $2 million earmark for Voyager Expanded Learning in a bill a mere four days after receiving $30,000 in campaign contributions from company executives and their relatives,” according to a release from the watchdog organization. “CREW also asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the matter.”

“Sen. Landrieu appears to have traded a $2 million earmark for $30,000 in campaign contributions,” Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, said in a statement. “Members of Congress need to understand that trading earmarks for campaign funds is illegal — no exceptions.”

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Only 372 out of 435 Congressional House members voted in favor of a resolution this week that called for a recognition of “the importance of Christmas.” Democratic Reps. Gary Ackerman, N.Y.; Yvette Clarke, N.Y.; Diana DeGette, Colo.; Alcee Hastings, Fla.; Barbara Lee, Calif.; Jim McDermott, Wash.; Bobby Scott, Va.; Pete Stark, Calif.; and Lynn Woolsey, Calif., voted no on the measure. Similar resolutions earlier this year recognizing the Hindu holiday of Diwali and the Muslim holiday of Ramadan passed without any no votes.

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During a press conference just now, CIA Director Michael Hayden said the agency should have done a better job of informing Congress about tapes that have since been destroyed, which showed U.S. government officials interrogating terror suspects.

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