I guess dirty talk is a much more serious issue than financial fraud that cost investors $2.4 million.

After investors sued a company whose new breast-cancer detector turned out to be ineffective, a firm partly owned by the Democrat fighting for Mark Foley's congressional seat stepped in.

Tim Mahoney's company, though, didn't side with the investors, who included a former deputy CIA director and a media empire heiress.

Instead, Mahoney's Boca Raton-based vFinance Inc. bought out the assets -- but not the liabilities -- of a deep-pocketed investment group that sold shares in the cancer-detector company. The plaintiffs said the purchase of Sterling Financial Investment Group's assets was a fraudulent effort to hide ill-gotten gains and will make it tougher for them to collect if they win the suit filed in December 2005 in federal court in Texas.

''At the very least, this was unethical. vFinance showed up at the party and took away the money that should be part of a judgment,'' said the plaintiffs' attorney, Mark Kincaid.

vFinance was recently added to the suit along with Sterling and the cancer-detector company DOBI. All deny wrongdoing and say investors knew the risks of speculating on the market. Through his campaign, Mahoney, vFinance's chairman who is not named in the suit, declined to comment and deferred questions to the company's attorney, Peter Ticktin.

This stripping of assets while leaving only liabilities seems to be a pattern among liberals. That is a big part of why Air America, which filed for bankruptcy today, was able to survive – once its creators ran up debt, they simply sold the assets and left those owed money holding the bag. Highly unethical – but seemingly an approved practice if you are on the left end of the political spectrum.

And one more reason to vote Republican.