FRANCINE BUSBY FOR CONGRESS-- SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO CLEAN UP THE MESS

Francine Busby has been living in a San Diego area represented by one of the half dozen most corrupt and contemptible parasites to afflict American electoral politics, confessed crook Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Cunningham is going to prison until Bush pardons him in 2008 (unless Bush is impeached before then). But what about the 50th congressional district? Francine has basically been running a campaign geared for the law to catch up with Cunningham for 4 years. She is poised to win this seat.

Last week, even before Cunningham confessed to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors (who were selling shoddy and useless products to the Pentagon for our fighting men), Francine unveiled a Clean House Act. And it's no coincidence that something like this is coming from someone living in a district represented by pure and unmitigated filth like Cunningham (one among dozens of grotesquely corrupt Republicans, but one lame and greedily overreaching enough to get caught red handed). Calling it the Change Legislative Ethics and Attitudes Now (CLEAN) House Act, it is an ethics proposal more ambitious than any currently introduced in Congress. These are the 4 main parts:

• Ban All Outside Financial Relationships With Government Contractors
• Ban Members Promoting Specific Businesses For Government Contracts of Regulatory Favors
• Eliminate Anonymous Appropriations
• Ban All Privately Funded Congressional Travel

Watch the Republicans squeal like stuck pigs when Francine tries getting this modest, common-sense proposal legislated after she becomes the first Democratic congressperson elected in a tsunami of outrage against Republican extremism, incompetence and corruption. She is demanding that WE THE PEOPLE "hold members of Congress to the same standards that we demand of ourselves. The need for ethics reform has become obvious to Americans who have witnessed Congress treat itself more and more as an exclusive club where members make rules, bend rules and break rules to protect one another and the culture of corruption that has emerged as the norm." Makes complete sense to me and a really good reason to support Francine in the special election Schwarzenegger will have to call to fill the seat from which the disgraced Cunningham resigned yesterday.