The last thing I'd want...

...you to think is that the Republican mob in DC are somehow less venal, lawless and loathsome this year than they were last year. There's plenty of evidence to the contrary. That's reason enough for a bonus update (really a catchup, since I skipped a week, I suppose, to the



Of course, it helps when Tom DeLay makes it so damn easy. This time he delivers up a three-fer!

First a report that there are a number of ethical inconsistencies surrounding a golf junket to Scotland in 2000. Falsified documents, unreported funding, and a special guest appearance by Jack Abramoff. More than enough there to log a point on the Scandal Scorecard.

You'd think that would be a busy day of ethical concerns for most any Mortal, but it's just not enough to satisfy the BugMan, who seems to have a penchant for world travel. Maybe he should save up and buy his own tickets, though.

A delegation of Republican House members including Majority Leader Tom DeLay accepted an expense-paid trip to South Korea in 2001 from a registered foreign agent despite House rules that bar the acceptance of travel expenses from foreign agents, according to government documents and travel reports filed by the House members.

Score two for Tom.

But wait! There's more! Not exotic locales this time. Nope, the hat trick comes with a little home grown malfeasance...

Austin, Texas -- Several e-mails point to Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's involvement in corporate fund-raising for a political action committee under investigation for alleged election violations, Democrats contend.

The e-mails were from Warren M. RoBold, an indicted fund-raiser for Texans for Republican Majority and DeLay's national political action committee.

The e-mails were entered into evidence in a civil trial last week focusing on the Texas committee's activities in the 2002 state legislative elections.

Yep. TRMPAC's back in the news, and DeLay is deep in the middle of it. Are these emails the smoking gun that will produce the long awaited DeLay indictment? You never really know. He is one slippery critter.

What we do know is that Tom DeLay was a principal in a conspiracy to use illegal campaign cash to manipulate legislative elections in Texas in order to set the stage for manipulating Congressional elections in Texas.

It may be business as usual in Republican Party leadership, but out here in America, it's just plain scandalous.