The competition to be the number one corrupt Republican legislator in Washington, D.C. is keen.

Recently the corruption spotlight shone brightly on the longest serving Republican senator of all, Ted Stevens of Alaska.

Stevens had become the "King of Pork".  The word "pork" in Senate terms defines pet projects of House and Senate members for an assortment of cash for the people who put them in office.

Stevens had sent a series of huge sums back home to Alaska as the "King of Pork".  His most notorious achievement was the Alaskan Bridge that led to nowhere.  

Scooter Libby - The former Chief of Staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame.

Paul Wolfowitz, -- After using his position of former Deputy Secretary of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld, was pushing hard for the Iraq War to go forward in the fast lane.  Later Bush appointed him head of the World Bank.  He used his position to help arrange a large pay raise for his female companion.  This incident has intensified calls for his resignation.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales - Fighting to hold onto his job amid a congressional investigation into his role in firing eight U.S. prosecutors.  At a congressional hearing when asked specific questions he constantly replied, "I don't remember."  But the TV audiences that watched this evasive cover-up response would remember what a tight-lipped clipped answer as he snapped, "I don't remember" like a tape recording that got stuck.

Roger Stillwell - Former Interior Department official, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor when he never reported tickets given to him by convicted lobbyist grafter Jack Abramoff.

Historians have recently trained their analytical insights on the Bush American calamity alongside the collapse of an overly bloated, calamitously extended Roman Empire and the comparisons are numerous and demonstrably apt.

A few years ago alarm was expressed over the "dumbing down" of America and rightfully so, with a film like "Forest Gump" achieving multiple Oscar status while the romps of "Beavis and Butthead" gained wide fame on television.  

That was over a decade ago and many would argue that we moved from "Forest Gump" in a movie to occupying the Oval Office of the White House with George W. Bush's emergence on the national scene.

Politically well-informed people I am in touch with from other countries, as well as those I have visited on trips out of the United States, all ask the same question.  While the Bush Administration attempts to put its spin on such concerns by alleging that people from other countries plainly hate America an opposite interpretation emerges from talking to people outside America.    

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, long a figure on the religious right, has a warning for his conservative Christian friends:  books now on the shelves in the nation's book stores threaten them like Osama Bin Laden and Adolph Hitler. At least a little. Or maybe a lot.

Lapin says they are part of a "propaganda blitzkreig" -- one that puts TV talk show host  Bill O'Reilly's claimed war on Christmas to shame: The war is on Christianity itself.  Well, at least, you know, the right kinds of Christians. Lapin writes in the World Net Daily:  

The war is against those who regard the Bible to be God's revelation to humanity and the Ten Commandments to be His set of rules for all time.

Toward Tradition, the one of the leading organizations of the Jewish element of the religious right is going out of business due to it's involvement in the still-unfolding Abramoff scandal.

 Abramoff had been as much a part of the life of the organization as the cause of its demise. He served on the Toward Tradition board until 2004 and served two terms as chairman.

It turns out that Senate investigators have shown how Abramoff used Toward Tradition head Daniel Lapin as a sock puppet for his corporate clients, notably the Channel One Network that pipes a little "news" and a whole lot of commercials into American public school classrooms.

There is dynamite material in this blog round-up that points to themes that have never been adequately exploited by those affected by the religious right. If these themes were further developed, they could almost serve as a briefinb book on how to bust the religious right. Three examples:

1) Routine lies and distortions by religious right organizations and leaders

2) The bizarre role of Rev. Sun Myung Moon in the GOP

3) Forced abortion and prostitution in the free market paradise of the Mariannas promoted and protected by Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff.

There have been a great many unexploited or underexploited fractures, flaws, hypocrises and more over the years. To make effective use of such things requires knowledge and skills in using the material effectively. These are things that are rarely encouraged anywhere left of the religious right.

And people wonder why the religious right is so powerful.

By now, most people know that former Christian Coalition executive director, Ralph Reed, lost the GOP primary for Lt. Governor of Georgia. This was taken as good news for those of us who felt that if the talented Mr. Reed was able to shake of the Abramoff scandal and win the primary -- odds were good that he would go on to win the general election, and have a future in national politics. Perhaps someday moving up to governor or senator. Maybe gaining a place on the national GOP ticket someday. All such speculation is moot now, in light of his 55-45% loss to a once-obscure state senator.  

But there is only so much to celebrate in Reed's loss. Reed lost not primarily because of his views, (although some Democrats crossed over to vote against him) but because he was seen as a hypocrite, a liar and a possibly a crook.

The victor, State Senator Casey Cagle, while not a flame thrower in the mould of Ralph Reed -- is also a stalwart of the agenda of the Christian Right.  

As the Republican 'Culture of Corruption' continues its tumultuous death spiral, conservative apologists are working tirelessly to cloud the lines between their breathtaking, broadly-swept lack of integrity (Abramoff, Iraq, Plame, torture, Cunningham, Delay, and on and on) and isolated individual shortcomings with certain Democrats (Patrick Kennedy). Or, as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi put it:

...Pelosi sought Thursday to differentiate the [William] Jefferson case from what Democrats have labeled the "culture of corruption" linking the Republican majority and special interests represented by disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. "The Republicans are all tied together," she said. "Mr. Jefferson is his own behavior, he is responsible for it."

In addition to Pelosi's point, there is one very telling difference between the Democratic and Republican leadership of which all potential voters should be aware.

To illustrate, we'll take two real-life purveyors of alleged corruption within each party.

The Wall Street Journal has joined a chorus of national publications chronicling the political woes of Ralph Reed, once the boy wunderkind of the Christian Right, who is running for his political life in the GOP primary for Lt. Governor of Georgia.

Several surveys show Mr. Reed still holding a narrow lead, but with high unfavorable ratings and many voters undecided.... Will Mr. Reed, a star of the national Republican Party, become the first campaign casualty of the Abramoff scandal when he squares off with state Sen. Casey Cagle in the July 18 primary?

I could be wrong, but I think I smell burning toast.

Blogorama on the religious right is an occasional round-up of signficant posts from around the blogosphere on the religious right and what to do about it.  

Jonathan Hutson, writing at Talk to Action, has the latest fallout from the Abramoff scandal that has busted out beyond the Beltway:  

The Christian Coalition of Alabama (CCA) is accusing trial lawyers, without any evidence, of funding an anti-Christian agenda through its contributions to judicial candidates. That's a whopper, and CCA knows it. CCA leader John Giles has surely not forgotten that he has criticized trial lawyers in The New York Times for contributing nearly a million dollars to the 2004 campaigns of three conservative Christian candidates for the Alabama Supreme Court. Those candidates advertised that they share the same judicial philosophy as former Alabama Chief Justice Roy S Moore, the "Ten Commandments" judge, who wants to remake America as a Christian nation.

So why is CCA engaged in a baseless smear campaign over judicial contributions? Maybe it's because the agenda that the CCA is pushing these days is not so much a pro-Christian agenda as a pro-corporate agenda. And maybe they're trying to distract conservative Christian voters from the fact that the CCA is embroiled in a scandal over its acceptance of $850,000 in contributions that trace back to one of the Indian tribal clients of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Disgraced former Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay has already proven to be the king of political corruption. That feather-in-hat safely secured, Tom turns to other opportunities.

With Jack Abramoff likely to soon be staring at the far side of prison bars, a throbbing void is bulging in the lobbying world -- one that can only be satisfied by the likes of Tom Delay.

That's right, in an interview with Time Magazine, Delay spills it asserting "he has not ruled out becoming a lobbyist."

You know the saying, 'Do what you know'. If there's anything Delay knows...

After spending his victorious primary night partying with his lobbyist buddies, Representative Tom DeLay has decided to call it quits.

Uh, oh! Someone knows something about Tom DeLay that Tom DeLay doesn't want anyone to know.  

So what does he do? Why, the only thing that comes naturally to him -- he ran away -- to Virginia to partake in their delicious hams, their proximity to K-Street, and their distance from Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

It's true. The former House Republican Majority Leader has abandoned his reelection bid and is expected to resign from the House within the next few weeks. DeLay said "his decision was best for his district and based on troubling internal polling numbers" which "showed him beating Democrat Nick Lampson in the general election but in a race that would be too close for comfort."

The Abramoff scandal -- the inside-the-beltway story of Congressional corruption and the influence of connected lobbyists, that finally brought down former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) -- will probably, eventually, also consume longtime Christian Right political leader, Ralph Reed.  

In the 1990s, Reed epitomized the emergence of the Christian Right as an organized political force. Times have changed, and several major political careers may turn on the widening gyre of the scandal.  

Bob Moser, writing in the current issue of The Nation, has a long and revealing look at the trajectory of Reed's career -  from boy political wunderkind to the combustion of the Abramoff corruption scandal.  

Every week brings a new revelation about the millions in dirty money Reed earned by duping his fellow evangelicals into putting their political muscle behind "Casino Jack" Abramoff's gambling clients. Reed's huge leads in both popularity polls and fundraising have almost disappeared. Instead of making his triumphant debut as a politician, the man Time magazine called "The Right Hand of God" is fast becoming the new poster boy for Christian-right corruption.

The source is Bob Novak, so take this with a HUGE grain of salt:

Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has advised friends that he has no derogatory information about former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and is not implicating him as part of his plea bargain with federal prosecutors.

 Abramoff's guilty plea on fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy charges requires him to provide evidence about members of Congress. That led to speculation that this would mean trouble for DeLay, who faces money laundering and conspiracy charges in Texas.

 However, Abramoff has not given a clean bill of health to any other congressman -- including Rep. Robert Ney, who has stepped down as chairman of the House Administration Committee. Ney was the only member of Congress named in court papers connected with Abramoff's guilty plea Jan. 4.

Russian authorities still deny pre-war connections to Saddam Hussein


Washington, DC (Washington Prost) - An anonymous White House/Pentagon source today revealed further photographic and documentary evidence suggesting that Russian intelligence sources inside America were able to feed information to Saddam Hussein prior to the US invasion. The information was reputedly confiscated by US troops from various Hussein command posts after the invasion.