Some Members of Congress have tried to keep a lower profile with lobbyists since the Abramoff guilty plea, but not Senator Conrad Burns.

In fact, he has a fundraiser scheduled with K Street lobbyists for January 25th.

Here's an email that circulated in Washington today:

From: RSVP [mailto:rsvp@bellwethergroup.net]
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 1:46 PM
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Subject: Senator Conrad Burns's 1/25 Birthday Bash!!!

The White House is refusing to reveal exactly who Jack Abramoff met with in the White House during his more than 200 contacts in the first ten months of the Bush administration.  This is despite promising to do so, less than two weeks ago. 

The White House review must have produced something embarassing.

Here's the AP version:

The White House is refusing to reveal details of tainted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's visits with President Bush's staff.

In a NYTimes story on the Congressional GOP's day-late-dollar-short rollout of an ethics reform package, House Speaker Denny Hastert lets America know how big a bunch of suckers he thinks we are.  Clearly thinking he was responding to an electorate and press corps that would believe any old garbage he tossed out, Hastert offered up the gem relayed in this excerpt...

Hastert, at his news conference, shrugged off criticisms that he had put off action on lobbying reform and was only responding when his own party faced a crisis.

The crybabies on the right are whining because Sen. Hillary Clinton said over the weekend that the GOP runs the House like a plantation.

She doesn't need to apologize, but perhaps she would have spoken more accurately had she compared the House GOP to the mafia.

Here's a definition, you see if you think it applies:

 The Organized Crime Control Act (U.S., 1970) defines organized crime as "The unlawful activities of ... a highly organized, disciplined association...".

An aide to Rep. Richard Pombo is under fire for ethics violations.

According to the Contra Costa Times:

Rep. Richard Pombo's top aide might have violated congressional ethics rules by not correctly reporting all of his outside political work and making too much money from California campaigns and consultants, the aide said Friday.

Steven Ding regularly worked for candidates and organizations with close ties to Pombo, a Tracy Republican who is chairman of the House Resources Committee.

Today's Houston Chronicle raises questions about a $330,000 contract between the State of Texas and K Street firm, Cassidy & Associates, a lobbying shop with extremely close ties to acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt.

Todd Boulanger, a long-time Abramoff lieutenant, and husband to Roy Blunt's spokeswoman, Jessica Boulanger, manages the account for Cassidy.  Former Chief of Staff to Roy Blunt, Gregg Hartley is now the Chief Operating Officer at Cassidy.   And other former Blunt staffers work there as well.

Rep. Bob Ney, who was been implicated in the Abramoff investigation, announced today that he will temporarily step aside as Chair of the House Administration Committee until his legal future is more certain.

It is clear from Jack Abramoff's plea agreement that Rep. Ney is one of the GOP Members of Congress most in harm's way.

Here is the AP on it:

Rep. Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican implicated in a lobbying corruption investigation, said Sunday he will step aside temporarily as chairman of the House Administration Committee.

We all know that Rep. John Boehner is a bit obsessed with the idea of spending political money efficiently.  So the Campaign for a Cleaner Congress thought it might be a good idea to see who was winning the Majority Leader's race on a cost per vote basis.

The Campaign for a Cleaner Congress took the publicly available list of supporters to which names have been attached for each candidate, which shows the current tally at 64 votes for Blunt to 37 votes for Boehner, and compared it to the political giving of both Blunt and Boehner over their careers in Congress.  Here is what they found.

The RGA issued a press release claiming that they plan to give the $500,000 in Abramoff tainted money to vicitms of Hurricane Katrina.

However, the release fails to mention that they plan to keep part of the money for as long as TWO years, as reported by the AP this morning.

We can't let them get by with this.  They must return the money now.  And furthermore, they need to explain why it took them 18 months to ever report the contribution, and they should have to explain which Governors they gave this tainted money to in the first place.

First the RGA took half a million dollars of the proceeds of Jack Abramoff's fraud scheme.  

Then they didn't report it for 18 months.

Now Governor Mitt Romney is trying to pose as some kind of ethics do-gooder while keeping the money for another TWO YEARS!

From the Boston Globe version of the AP story:

Romney said an internal review, triggered by questions about the donations on Tuesday from the AP, deemed the donations legal. But he and Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia, the RGA vice chairman, decided to split them equally over two years among Red Cross chapters in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida.