Presumptuous

So Kobayashi Chiyomi (Hokkaido #5 District) is forced to give up her Diet seat because of the arrests of four of her associates for channeling four illegal donations to her campaign from the Hokkaido Teacher's Union totaling 16 million yen...and the PM stays on despite the indictment of two of his former aides for filing false statements regarding seven years of monthly cash payments from his mother totaling 1.17 billion yen?

Amaterasu, if the Prime Minister Hatoyama, Ozawa Ichiro or others in the Democratic Party of Japan think that throwing a female junior legislator to the wolves will in some way limit the damage that has been done to the Democratic Party of Japan's reputation, they are living on another planet. I cannot think of anything that will turn off floating voters, particularly women voters, more.

Let us hope that this report of the DPJ having a glaring double standard in the way it handles campaign contribution violations was just somebody's trial balloon.

Speaking about floating trial balloons, Richard Lawless and Nagashima Akihisa have been busy trying to bull rush the Futenma replacement base selection process. Lawless, since he is out of government, does not have to care about what he is spouting...and neither do we (Nota bene: Kato-san, please stop talking to these people). Nagashima, however, is in the government and has been caught talking way above his pay grade.

Nagashima is most likely telling the truth, that the Futenma onshore option is a done deal. However, telling the truth prematurely, as Nagashima seems to have done, can have serious consequences for his continued tenure at the Ministry of Defense.

Let us keep an eye on how Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirano Hirofumi handles Nagashima's sudden onset of loose lips syndrome.