The AP reports that Governors Rick Perry of Texas, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, and Matt Blunt of Missouri all gathered in Texas yesterday for two RGA fundraising events, one in Dallas, and one in Houston.

You have to imagine that the conversation between the three of them had to be pretty interesting, given that all three are caught up in political and campaign finance scandals these days.

Governor Perry is under fire for steering a massive lobbying contract to Cassidy & Associates, the firm led by Rep. Roy Blunt's former Chief of Staff Gregg Hartley, and where former Team Abramoff lobbyist Todd Boulanger handles the account.  Boulanger is married to Rep. Roy Blunt's spokeswoman, Jessica Boulanger.

The Abramoff Scandal appears poised to take yet another vicitm soon.  Ralph Reed is under extreme pressure in Georgia to withdraw from the Lt. Governor's race.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Twenty-one Republican state senators on Friday called for Ralph Reed to withdraw from the contest for lieutenant governor, declaring that his ties to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff could jeopardize the re-election of Gov. Sonny Perdue and the rest of the GOP ticket.

"For the good of the Republican Party, for the good of Georgia, we encourage Ralph Reed to withdraw from this race," stated the petition signed by the senators, all of whom support Reed's GOP rival, state Sen. Casey Cagle of Gainesville.

Reed rejected the petition as a useless stunt, and expressed confidence that his record and ideas would prevail.

The sanctimonious Reed is under fire for running campaigns to benefit Jack Abramoff's Indian gaming clients.

There's a pretty interesting story in today's USA Today about Rep. John Boehner and his fundraising activity.

On Boehner's leadership PAC:

With the fund, Boehner raised money from companies such as Sallie Mae, Merrill Lynch, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Cincinnati Financial Corp., and doled out nearly $3 million to dozens of House members over the last 11 years.

This is starting to sound familiar already.

It will be interesting to see if Rep. Roy Blunt's recent snub of the Republican Study Committee will cost him votes on Thursday.

According to Townhall.com, both of Blunt's opponents in the race for Majority Leader filled out the questionnaire sent to them by the RSC before meeting with the group earlier this week in Baltimore.  Only Blunt refused to answer the group's questions.
 

As we have previously reported on Fired Up!, after September 11th, at the request of then-U.S. Attorney for Guam, Frederick A. Black, a report was prepared by the Department of Justice that cited major security concerns related to weak enforcement of immigration laws on Guam and the CNMI. 

Jack Abramoff, who then represented the CNMI, got word of the report from sources inside the Justice Department, and worked to have the report killed.  Bloomberg has reported that Abramoff may have been tipped off about the report as early as October 2001.

The LA Times has a very interesting story about the cozy ties between Rep. Curt Weldon, and a lobbyist from his hometwon of Media, PA.

The lobbying firm of Grimes and Young Inc. is not on K Street, famous address of some of the nation's most influential lobbyists. In fact, Grimes and Young is about a 2 1/2 -hour drive from the halls of Congress, in politically remote Media, Pa. (pop. 5,469).

The firm has no office. It has no website. It has only one lobbyist — Cecelia Grimes. And she's a real estate agent. Her resume shows no past experience working on Capitol Hill or for the federal government.

The name Howard Hills may or may not ring a bell to you.  Hills is a former Reagan administration official, worked on the transition team for the first Bush administration, and is a lawyer who has done work for various Pacific Islands over the last 20 years.  But Hills is most famous for work he never even performed.

According to an audit by the Office of Public Auditor on Guam, Hills is the Laguna Hills attorney who funnelled $324,000 to lobbyist Jack Abramoff for lobbying services that Abramoff performed on behalf of the Superior Court of Guam.  The payments were made in $9,000 increments in order to evade Guam's procurement statutes, and Abramoff never registered on behalf of the Superior Court of Guam, instead he registered as a lobbyist for Howard Hills.

Jarod Hill, of Oak Hill, left, and Joshua Stevens, of Chillicothe, were among several protesters who were out Friday afternoon to have their voices heard during Congressman Bob Ney's appearance in Chillicothe.

Check out the local coverage of Rep. Bob Ney's "I Am Not A Crook Tour."

The scene outside Renick's Family Restaurant Friday was in sharp contrast to the gathering in the banquet hall.

While supporters of U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, R-Heath, cheered and spoke about his campaign for re-election inside, a group of residents protested outside.

Dressed in shirts that read, "Just say Ney to Bribes and Scottish Junkets," local representatives from a group known as Campaign for a Cleaner Congress handed out fliers while one member played the bagpipes. 

I wonder if that's how Bobby was hoping that would turn out?

According to the Saipan Tribune, Governor Benigno Fitial is seeking to recover millions in fees that the CNMI government paid to Abramoff's lobbying firms, Preston Gates, and Greenberg Traurig.

 The CNMI government is demanding full restitution from the lobby firms of Jack Abramoff following the latter's widely publicized federal felony conviction, threatening the companies with lawsuits if they don't reimburse the CNMI several millions of dollars.

Gov. Benigno Fitial asked lobby firms Greenberg Traurig L.L.P. and Preston Gates, Ellis & Rouvelas, Meeds to reimburse all monies the Commonwealth government paid for their services, saying that the positive benefits of those services have been undone by the wide scandal brought on by the criminal charges against Abramoff.

On Friday, we told you about a story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal about the cozy ties between Rep. Roy Blunt and K Street lobbyist, Gregg Hartley. Unfortunately, it was walled off behind the WSJ fee barricade. But now you can read it for yourself.

This story makes it very clear that Rep. Roy Blunt has replicated DeLay, Inc, the system engineered by Rep. Tom DeLay of integrating his official leadership operation with outside lobbying firms.

DeLay integrated his operation with the Alexander Strategy Group. That firm is now going out of business as a result of the indictments of DeLay and Abramoff, and there are undoubtedly more forthcoming.