Just a brief word of thanks to Minnesota’s Republican party. Amid such a torrent of bad news — a new wildfire of COVID infections thanks entirely to MAGA Nation, half the West and northern Minnesota turning to ash, religious lunatics overrunning Afghanistan and (Trumpus Americanus again) demanding to tote their firearm/penile extensions through the State Fair — our local Republicans have served up a delicious late summer sexual distraction.

Colleague/site czar Joe Loveland has had his say on the matter of GOP chairwoman Jennifer Carnahan and what has been revealed following very close pal “Tony” Lazzaro’s indictment on sex trafficking, which is a euphemism for pimping under age girls.

Since Joe posted, a new round of stories — every political reporter in town is salivating over this mess — has revealed a gay staffer’s complaint that Carnahan “outed” her when convenient to show some LGBTQ bona fides to “moderate” Republicans, (I’d like names and numbers on that crowd if you don’t mind), but then turned around and vilified her to the (presumably much larger) GOP base laser-focused on keeping America free of swishy “preversion”, to paraphrase the great Col. Bat Guano.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, four other local party muckety-mucks stepped up to describe Carnahan’s basic office theology as “morally bankrupt”, not to mention “toxic.”

A modern Republican bureaucracy dedicated to fund-raising and messaging “morally bankrupt” and “toxic?” I could not be more shocked!

Back in my newspaper days — in the rare times I was actually in the newsroom — it was amusing to listen to the guffawing and snickering among hardened reporters over the latest statement from the chairs of either party. The stuff was always so ham-fisted and hyperbolic. Every other day one or the other was “demanding” or “calling for” the other party to concede moral dereliction, humiliating defeat and accept a month in the public stocks.

Who in god’s name were they talking to? What sort of imbecile responded to that kind of spittle-flecked ranting? (Not that I’m opposed to spittle-flecked ranting, you understand.)

Remember Tony Sutton? A lot of us didn’t think the Republicans could top a guy who so grossly “mismanaged” the party’s finances he was found guilty of “circumventing” finance laws, fined $33k, forced to resign as chair and then a couple years later filed for personal bankruptcy for not having the wherewithall to cover $2.1 million in debts, despite being CEO of the Baja Fresh chain of taco joints.

The guy was a hapless cartoon. Must watch TV every time he stepped up in front of a mic to rail against the ruinous depravity of free-spending liberals.

But now we have Carnahan. And Anton “Tony” Lazarro.

As I follow this story, Carnahan and Lazzaro linked up several years ago — when “Tony” was in his mid-twenties and already living the high-life, a bit like Mr. Sutton. I’d like to think Carnahan was charmed by Lazzaro’s ethics and sense of civic responsibility. But you know … I’m thinking it was really all about the Benjamin’s, as the kids say. Young Mr. Lazzaro had a lot of cash and was soon writing a lot of checks — a quarter million dollars plus of them — to Carnahan’s candidates. With each check he was brought deeper into her embrace … figuratively speaking, of course.

This was the same young man living downtown at the Hotel Ivy, (a quite posh residence), driving a Ferrari and pictured sitting atop a private jet on his Facebook page.

Some of us, perhaps you and me, would observe that spectacle and ask something like, ‘Where is that little douchebag getting that kind of cash?”

But apparently where her new BFF “Tony” was getting Saudi sheik-style dough never crossed Ms. Carnahan’s mind. (Quite Trump-like, Carnahan is now playing the “I don’t really know him that well” game.) All that mattered waas that he had it and she was tapping him.

So I guess I’m really not that shocked that “toxic” and “morally bankrupt” are words in current fashion to describe Ms. Carnahan’s office environment.

While we await some morally righteous, hyperbolic condemnation from the likes of the GOP’s Senate Majority Leader, Paul Gazelka — Minnesota’s Cotton Mather — or Congress critters Tom Emmer, Pete Stauber or Michelle Fishbach or … well any Republican whose name regularly makes the news, we can at least express a little appreciation.

This farce is a lot more entertaining than watching a bunch of morally righteous, routinely hyperbolic, fundamentally transactional zealots rampage across some hell hole on the other side of the planet.