As the election for Majority Leader gets closer and closer, Rep. Roy Blunt appears to be getting more and more desperate.

The Arizona Daily Sun reports today that Rep. Roy Blunt has paid nearly $26,000 for the vote of Rep. Rick Renzi, an Arizona congressman.

U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi has thrown his support behind campaign contributor Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., to replace Tom DeLay as majority leader of the House, raising some eyebrows in the Valley.

Renzi is the first Republican among Arizona's congressmen to say he wouldn't back Rep. John Shadegg, who represents central Phoenix and communities north to Anthem, in favor of a colleague outside his delegation.

Today's story from the Washington Post on earmarks touches on the corruption that the GOP has institutionalized in Washington. 

An explosion of special interest funding engineered in part by lawmakers with close ties to lobbyists is drawing increased scrutiny as Congress moves to address concern about corruption that already has led to the conviction of a Republican House member and former GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

At issue is a symbiotic relationship between lawmakers well positioned to slip special-interest projects into legislation, and wealthy lobbying groups that raise large sums of campaign funds or provide trips and other benefits to those lawmakers.
   
In the latest example of these backstage dealings, Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) told The Washington Post that he helped steer defense funding, totaling $37 million, to a California company, whose officials and lobbyists helped raise at least $85,000 for Doolittle and his leadership political action committee from 2002 to 2005.

Of all the things I saw while I was in Washington, the earmark process was by far the most shocking. 

According to the AP, Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn is set to examine the Cassidy & Associates contract with Governor Rick Perry and the State of Texas.

 Comptroller and gubernatorial hopeful Carole Keeton Strayhorn on Thursday launched an investigation of a heavily criticized lobby contract with two firms hired to represent Texas interests in the nation's capital.

The $15,000-a.m.onth state contract with Washington, D.C.-based Cassidy & Associates has been questioned in recent days because of the firm's ties to embattled congressional influence peddler Jack Abramoff. Abramoff has pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud.

You have to check out the story in Rolling Stone on the House GOP.

Here's their take on the leadership race:

Of the two leading candidates for the recently vacated House majority leader seat, one (acting leader Roy Blunt) had attempted to slip tobacco-friendly language into a Homeland Security authorization bill while having an extramarital affair with a Phillip Morris lobbyist, while the other (John Boehner) had once been caught handing out checks from tobacco interests to members of Congress on the floor of the House.

On the Blunt family:

Yesterday, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi issued a call to Speaker Dennis Hastert for an investigation into the role that the Alexander Strategy Group, a firm with extremely close ties to Jack Abramoff, Rep. Tom DeLay and Rep. Roy Blunt, played in the passage of the fatally flawed Medicare drug plan.

From Pelosi's release: 

 House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, and Congressman Henry Waxman, senior Democrat on the Government Reform Committee, sent the following letter to Speaker Hastert today asking for a congressional investigation into the role of the Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm closely linked to Congressman Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Jack Abramoff, in the passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug Act and the drafting of the budget reconciliation bill currently before Congress.

We all know about the sordid activities of the Alexander Strategy Group and its partners, Ed Buckham and Tony Rudy, but it now looks like Cassidy & Associates is really making a play for the attention of the Department of Justice.

Today's Houston Chronicle breaks a story with the headline, "Lobbyists' state paycheck flows to fundraiser."

Todd Boulanger --a longtime Jack Abramoff protege whose Abramoff-related lobbying business and personal connections have been examined closely by Fired Up!-- is now at the center of his own firestorm involving a contract to lobby Congress for the State of Texas.

Roll Call has a story today that raises serious questions about Rep. Don Young's intervention for Jack Abramoff's tribal clients.

Roll Call reported that Young sent two letters in September, 2002, benefitting Abramoff's tribal clients.  They also reported that a few short weeks later, Young's PAC received several thousand dollars in contributions Abramoff's tribal clients. 

But Fired Up! can now reveal new information that makes this a far more disturbing matter.

Here's a timeline that combines information from the Roll Call story, with information independently obtained by Fired Up! America:

Today's Helena Independent Record reports that in the weeks prior to his decision to reverse his position on issues impacting the CNMI, Burns met with officials who had ties to Abramoff's longtime patrons, Tan Holdings.

Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., met with the sister-in-law of a Marianas man and client of confessed criminal Jack Abramoff in the weeks before Burns received a $5,000 donation from the man and reversed his position on a bill Abramoff opposed, a newspaper has reported.

This story from The Hill is just mindboggling.  In December 2003, Jack Abramoff, along with some fellow lobbyists and a handful of members of Congress threw a baby shower for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.

And what did guests contribute?  Cash, to a fund supposedly set up to pay for nanny services.

The lobbyist, who had been friends with Rohrabacher since the early 1980s when the future lawmaker was a White House speechwriter and Abramoff was chairman of the College Republicans, allowed the couple to use his restaurant, Signatures, between lunch and dinner for the shower. Only hors d’oeuvres were served, Rohrabacher disclosed in a Los Angeles Times article two weeks ago.