John Cheves brings the latest news that Greg Stumbo has – we know you’re so shocked – decided to take no action in the Keith Hal ethics scandal:

State Rep. Keith Hall, D-Phelps, will face no consequences for his recent ethics sanctions when the 2012 General Assembly convenes on Tuesday.

-SNIP-

It was the strongest ethics penalty handed down to a Kentucky state lawmaker in more than a decade. The ethics commission notified House Speaker Greg Stumbo of its findings so he could take whatever action he considered appropriate, said executive director Anthony Wilhoit.

That would be nothing, Stumbo said in a prepared statement.

That is dripping with shiz because the House has taken much more drastic measures for much, much less:

However, such censures are rare. The last such case may have come in 1996, when the House ordered state Rep. Richard Turner, R-Tompkinsville, to publicly apologize and lose his seat on the appropriations committee for failing to report $3,000 he took from a lobbyist.

Jim Wayne has it right:

“But it’s important for us to publicly acknowledge that we have a member who crossed an ethical line. It reflects poorly on House leadership if we do nothing in a case that involves a House Democrat, one of our own, who’s from a district next to the House speaker’s,” Wayne said.

As does Steve Robertson:

Steve Robertson, chairman of the Kentucky Republican Party, said Stumbo aggressively chased misdemeanor offenses by Republicans when he was the Democratic attorney general investigating GOP Gov. Ernie Fletcher. Now that a member of his own political party has been caught in a case involving $171,000 in public funds, Stumbo prefers to drop it, Robertson said.

Click here to read the entire story from Cheves.

And then sit back and enjoy the good old boy crime syndicate. Because Jack Conway will likely take no action, either.