Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Gawd, three of you have sent me copies of today’s Wall Street Journal article about Rick Renzi. Unfortunately, I can’t link it because the plutocrats at the Journal only allow you to read it by subscription only. That is reason number one that those guys are first against the wall after I lead my revolution.
I’ll […]

TucsonMark posted yesterday that Rick Renzi has taken himself out of a program called ROMP. So, my first question was, what the heck is ROMP?
ROMP is the “Regain Our Majority Program.” It was one of the money raising schemes put together by Tom DeLay. Under DeLay, it was actually called “Retain Our Majority Program,” but, […]

Rick Renzi has dropped his membership from his two remaining committees, Financial Services and Natural Resources. This leaves him with, well, no committee assignments.
Any congressional history geeks that can tell me when the last time a member had no committee assignments?
Of course, he did this because of the tremendous pressure exerted by this blog. It […]

There seems to be some noise about getting former Senate President Ken Bennett to run for Rick Renzi’s seat. Geez, the Republicans are talking about this and the guy’s political body ain’t even cold yet. That ain’t a good sign, is it?
Bennett was talked up as a candidate for governor, even John McCain was rumored to […]

Last week, after his wife’s buisiness was raided by the FBI, Rick Renzi stepped down from the House Intelligence Committee.
Now, here’s the funny part: he didn’t step down from the House Natural Resources Committee, the committee that handled the land swaps that got him into trouble in the first place.
It would be like someone who got too […]

With the word “Renzi” looking more and more synonymous with the word “toast,” there is a Democratic candidate making noises: Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick from Flagstaff.
Kirkpatrick has already met with various pooh-bahs from both the DCCC and Arizona’s congressional delegation, and people have been supportive (but short of outright endorsement, of course). Some talk even suggests […]

Thanks to TucsonMark, we have a link to this morning’s Wall Street Journal article detailing the allegations against Rick Renzi. Apparently, it involves an alfalfa field near Sierra Vista. What, no buckwheat?
Renzi tried to get Resolution Copper Company, who wanted to sink a new underground mine near Superior, to buy the field in exchange for arranging the […]

The word is out that the Wall Street Journal has had a reporter in the state for the last couple of weeks turning over every possible rock to get the goods on Rick Renzi. Talk is that tomorrow’s edition of the Journal will feature a blockbuster story about the invesitgation into the land swap.
So…where is […]

Well, it’s finally happened: some action has been taken in the inquiry into Rick Renzi. The FBI raided an insurance company owned by Renzi’s wife yesterday. Depending on who you ask, the inquiry either involves a defense contract, or a land swap. In any case, this thing has finally gotten past the “some sources say…” stage.
The […]

Yesterday, I threw out an allegation that was unecessary for the point I was trying to make. I alleged that a reporter had written a story downplaying the Rick Renzi indictments, and was later hired by a firm that does work for Renzi’s attorney. Well, I went back and checked the story. As it turns […]

The new story going around in legal circles is that Paul Charlton was fired not for investigating Rick Renzi, but instead for the leak of the investigation just weeks before the election.
Not that I would know anything about that.
The story made the Washington Post, but was ignored by our state’s paper of record. Well, worse […]

Because we don’t have any pressing problems before our fair State, the house homeland security committee will be taking up SCM 1002 tommorrow. What important issue does this non-binding memorial bill tackle? It is a resolution against plans to unify Canada, the United States and Mexico into one super state.
You haven’t heard about this? Well, […]

It’s about to boil over. The AP and UPI are both running pieces on the Paul Charlton firing and questions on whether or not it was connected to an ongoing probe of Rick Renzi (I’m not saying he’s a carpetbagger, but his favorite Western is The Virginian).
The AP story is really an Arizona Republic article on the matter. […]

The Nation published a piece yesterday about the firing of Paul Charlton. As with most pieces on this subject, it leaves me with more questions than it answers. It does introduce a heretofore unknown (to me) character, a former US Attorney named Brent Ward. Ward prosecuted many pornography cases and became an ally of Ed […]

A Howard Fischer story made the rounds last week about Sen. Karen Johnson and her latest claims of, I think, a Canadian invasion. Many of us had a chuckle about it, including her assertion that she had meetings with Jeff Flake and Rick Renzi about the issue, an assertion not yet confirmed by either office.
Here […]

Yesterday’s Republic featured a story on the Rick Renzi controversey that implied that the whole thing was a dirty trick from the Ellen Simon campaign. Never mind that this has been investigated for months, they asked Renzi and his lawyer, former Attorney General Grant Woods, and they assured the Republic that this is being done […]

So, both the Washington Post and the Associated Press have stories out about the federal investigation of Rick Renzi’s land swap. This morning, a story about the deal appeared in the Arizona Republic. My question is, why does it seem the Republic is the last to know?
Last week, the Republic issued a fawning endorsement of […]

Okay, the story I put up about Rick Renzi the other day that a bunch of you said I was wrong about? Well…I was wrong about one thing, it is not an indictment, but an “inquiry.”
Apparently, the AP has the story now. I couldn’t find where it has been posted, but Renzi has apparently hired […]

This has already made an appearance on a couple of other blogs. I actually had this yesterday but, silly me, I wanted to confirm it first. This means I didn’t get to break the story.
Why must I insist on being ethical?
Here is the story that is going around. The US Attorney’s office has information that […]

I know I am the last to put this up, but I wasn’t sure how true it was.
The website Majority Watch has posted a poll showing Ellen Simon ahead of Rick Renzi 50-46. They also posted some crosstabs. Unfortunately, the tabs’s geographic breakdown seems a bit ham handed, with Graham and Greenlee Counties lumped in […]