RENZI REFUSES TO STEP DOWN DESPITE THE DESPERATE DEMANDS OF GOP LEADERS

GOP leaders inside the Beltway, embarrassed by the never ending exposure of Culture of Corruption Republicans, have been aggressively pressuring indicted congressman Rick Renzi (R-AZ) to resign. Considering that the loudest requests for him to resign are coming from John Boehner, a low grade criminal who was handing out Big Tobacco lobbyist checks on the floor of the House not too many years ago, Renzi hasn't been taking their bleating all that seriously. Today's Tucson Citizen echoed the words of Minority Leader John Boehner when they called for Renzi to step down:

It is impossible to imagine that U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi can continue to effectively represent his constituents in Arizona's huge 1st Congressional District.

The best he can do now is to resign.

Renzi has already resigned from his committee positions and has announced he wouldn't be running for re-election but today he announced he's not going to step down and "take on the cloak of guilt." He did however resign as the co-chairman of John McCain For President. Some say he was unceremoniously pushed off the Double Talk Express by the lobbyists driving it while McCain was shedding crocodile tears for his family in public. Today's Congressional Quarterly paints a sordid picture of one of McCain's closest allies, another of his so-called "Men of Honor" he has chosen to surround himself with.

Prosecutors said Renzi, as a member of the Natural Resources Committee in 2005 and 2006, conditioned his support for approval of a federal lands exchange on whether the deal would include property Sandlin owned in Cochise County, Ariz.

The indictment quoted Renzi as saying, “No Sandlin property, no bill.” Renzi later directed a second group of investors to purchase the property and include it in their land exchange proposal, resulting in a $733,000 payment to Renzi from Sandlin in 2005, according to the indictment.

Because Renzi, 49, was facing financial troubles in 2005, he needed a “substantial infusion of funds” to keep his insurance business afloat and “maintain his personal lifestyle,” according to the 26-page indictment.

The Justice Department also has charged that Renzi and Beardall embezzled more than $400,000 in insurance premiums from the trust account of the Patriot Insurance Agency, Inc., a Renzi family-owned business and said the money helped fund Renzi’s first congressional campaign.

You want four more years of this? John McCain's your man.


UPDATE: SENATE REPUBLICAN LEADERS HAVE BEEN NO LESS SUCCESSFUL IN GETTING LARRY CRAIG TO GO AWAY

With the Republican Convention scheduled to be held in Minneapolis this year, almost every delegate will pass through the airport where Larry Craig was caught soliciting sex from a handsome young police officer in a public toilet, a public toilet that has since become a tourist attraction. Mitch McConnell, is has a very vested interest in getting people to stop thinking about hypocritical Republican closet queens, tried to get his home-girl to resign-- but with no success. Well... there were a lot of promises, of course, but Craig is still sashaying around the Senate, even if, as rumored, he's finally given up haunting the Union Station rest rooms. Meanwhile, the man who first brought Craig's bizarre hypocrisy to the attention of the public, Mike Rogers, sent me a job application today-- to work as a summer intern for... Larry Craig. Anyone interested? Suggestion: for safety's sake, only women should apply.