Corruption-- The One Thing In Politics That Really Is Bipartisan

Today's Chicago Sun Times broke a story about Illinois corruption that looks, on the surface, pretty dire for Roland Burris and his ill-conceived bid to cling to the Senate seat then-Governor Rod Blogojevich appointed him to fill. It's more disigenuousness from our despicable and corrupt political class, the most bipartisan thing about American politics.

The son of embattled Sen. Roland Burris is a federal tax deadbeat who landed a $75,000-a-year state job under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich five months ago, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

Blagojevich's administration hired Roland W. Burris II as a senior counsel for the state's housing authority Sept. 10-- about six weeks after the Internal Revenue Service slapped a $34,163 tax lien on Burris II and three weeks after a mortgage company filed a foreclosure suit on his South Side house.

...Burris II's hiring, however, raises more questions about Sen. Burris' interactions with Blagojevich and his inner circle at a time when the governor was soliciting Sen. Burris for campaign contributions and Burris was angling to have Blagojevich appoint him to the Senate seat once held by President Obama.

Despite the efforts of the good guys-- Tom Geoghegan has just filed suit to have Burriss removed from the Senate--sometimes it looks like the Democrats are working like mad to catch up with the Tom DeLays, Denny Hasterts, Duke Cunninghams, Roy Blunts, and Jerry Lewises of the world. That will be hard because the GOP will always be one step ahead of them when it comes to corruption, something that they actually believe in as an ideological good-- stealing from the "damn government" and the law of the jungle, both part of the GOP Ten Commandments.

Just a few hours ago the NY Times reported another major Republican indictment, one that should sear McCain, Giuliani, the whole Florida Republican establishment, and a gaggle of wingnut politicians all over the country, from Richard Burr in North Carolina and Richard Shelby in Alabama to NRSC chair John Cornyn of Texas. Yesterday federal prosecutors got an indictment against a sleazy Jordanian "businessman," Ala'a al-Ali, who has been funneling large amounts of money to Republican Party politicians through one of the most corrupt Republican Party fundraisers in the country, Harry Sargeant III. Until recently Sargeant, who has-- along with his immediate family (people living and working at the same addresses as him)-- given hundreds of thousands of dollars to a roster of right wing crooks, from shady characters like the Diaz-Balart Brothers, Connie Mack, Tom Rooney, Richard Burr and Cass Ballenger to nationally prominent Republicans like John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Charlie Crist. Sargeant pumped more than half a million dollars into McCain's failed campaign last year, funneled tens of thousands of dollars into Giuliani's campaign, most of it illegally and was recently forced to resign as the treasurer of the scandal plagued Florida Republican Party.

Sargeant was the go-between for corrupt Arabs trying to buy influence from McCain and other right-wing leaders. And although there were small amounts that were given to Democrats as well, the vast majority of the money that went through Sargeant and al-Ali went to Republicans, usually extreme right wing ones. Richard Burr and Richard Shelby, two blowhard obstructionist Republicans who took tens of thousands of dollars from Sargeant, are refusing to return the money.


UPDATE... AND THEN THERE'S NEW HAMPSHIRE SENATOR JUDD GREGG

AP broke the story today about how Gregg and his brother stand to make a bundle based on one of his earmarks. The sleazy Republican hypocrite "personally has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Cyrus Gregg's office projects at the Pease International Tradeport, a Portsmouth business park built at the defunct Pease Air Force Base, once home to nuclear bombers. Judd Gregg has collected at least $240,017 to $651,801 from his investments there, Senate records show, while helping arrange at least $66 million in federal aid for the former base."

He says he didn't break any laws. They always say that; think back to Duke Cunningham, William Jefferson, Bob Ney and Tom DeLay. After all, they write the laws and the loopholes and know how to steal taxpayer money without putting themselves in jeopardy. It does now appear that this is the reason why he "decided" to withdraw his name as a Cabinet appointee.

If You Run Into McCain, Be Sure Not To Mention...

Lately McCain doesn't want to talk about the man he said he admires as much as anyone in the world, Colin Powell, who most grassroots Democrats see as a dishonorable and disingenuous cog in the Bush Regime machine, because Sunday Powell, as opportunistically as ever, is supposedly endorsing Obama on Meet the Press. Powell isn't the only longtime McCain crony McCain would rather not answer any questions about. Republican crook Harry Sargeant III has donated a great deal of money to McCain and other GOP elected officials. Mentioning his name on the Double Talk Express will get you left on the side of the road.

Sargeant is the worst kind of war profiteer crawling on the face of the earth, one of dozens among the inner circle of McCain backers. They contribute the McCain's campaign because they want the war to continue and because they want more wars, which make them richer and richer and ever more powerful. He wound up in a position to cheat taxpayers by serving faithfully as finance chairman of the criminal organization known as the Florida Republican Party. His oil trading company has stolen millions from the Pentagon and the taxpayers and he's given a hefty share of the loot to McCain and other GOP crooked pols. Among the Republicans who have partaken in his bribes-- between $100,000 and $250,000 in what many see as protection money-- are Oil Industry shills like John Cornyn (R-TX), Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, McCain (above the legal limit), and the RNC (over $75,000). None will return any of the tainted money. His coziness with high ranking Republicans allowed him to win outrageous contracts he would never have had a chance to get without bribery of GOP politicians.

He has managed to tuck away at least $200,000 bilked from American taxpayers. He has raised over half a million dollars for McCain this year and hosted a fat cat fundraiser for McCain in his Delray Beach mansion, where McCain was able to hobnob and collect checks from elements of organized crime. Sargeant has also been funneling illegal Arab money into McCain's campaign and McCain, reluctantly, is agreeing to return these contributions.

And, of course, it isn't just mentioning Republican stalwarts Powell or Sargeant that will get your head bitten off around McCain. Just start a conversation about his massive robocall slime machine. McCain used to complain about them-- when Bush unleashed them on him in 2000-- and he called what they do "hate calls." Now this integral part of the McCain campaign is bothering people in the battleground states with automated phones calls calling Barack Obama an associate of terrorists. Is it any wonder that every respectable journalist in the country-- unless you consider David Broder somehow respectable-- has noted that McCain is running the worst sewer campaign in history? [Note: One of Congress' most demented and extremist members, Minnesota lunatic fringe Republican Michele Bachmann loves the gutter politics of course. It's what she is.]

Even Maine rubber stamp Susan Collins is denouncing McCain's sleazy robocalls, a tactic that New Hampshire Republicans are calling a "waste of money," while carefully skirting the issue of McCain's fitness to lead the country. Others are just laughing that McCain is using the exact same crooked firm to slander Obama that Bush used to slander him in 2000! McCain sure has sunk to new depths. What wouldn't he do to win?