Congressman Rick Renzi, R-AZ, was today indicted for charges related to an allegedly corrupt federal land swap in Arizona:

John McCain said that Rep. Rick Renzi (R) would probably step down as co-chair of his Arizona campaign. McCain was unaware of the Arizona congressman's indictment until asked about it this morning after a town hall in Indianapolis, at which point he said that you always think about the family in these circumstances and he would look into Renzi's role in his campaign.

This has been a while in coming. The FBI raided Renzi's office in 2007 and it was widely assumed at the time that he would step down, although he's been protesting his innocence all along.

McCain, for his part, said you "always feel for the family" when incidents like this occur. (Funny, I didn't think this quite extended to the Republican Party, yet I know of other crime syndicates often referred to as "the family." It remains to be seen if Renzi is the latest in a string of drunken uncles at the reunion to be convicted of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, insurance fraud, or criminal forfeiture - but this sure would sound like racketeering if this was a mobster being brought up on this particular billet of charges.)

We've sorta been through this with McCain already, haven't we? He sure knows how to choose his associates.

As if these charges weren't quite enough (from May of 2007):

Renzi’s case was opened by former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton, who was fired as part of the Bush administration’s purge. In Oct. 2006, word leaked to the media about the investigation. Renzi’s top aide, Brian Murray, then called Charlton’s spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle to inquire about the investigation. Such calls are highly improper and potentially illegal.

Yesterday in an interview with Phoenix’s KPNX, Renzi spoke for the first time since the FBI raid and said that he believes he is being smeared by the Justice Department. He refused to take any responsibility for the land deal, instead charging — without any evidence — that the leaks on the investigation were “lies.” He added that “to make that up and put that out means the Department of Justice was engaged in electioneering and that needs to be investigated.

But as we all know, US Attorneys "serve at the pleasure of the president." They're never like, targets of politically motivated firings or anything.

Right.

The Rep reports on his blog:

"As you may have noticed the house has not been moving on any serious legislation. Yes, we have done several resolutions honoring schools teachers and such but no real meaty bills. On the other hand the Republican controlled senate is moving important legislation and has been diligently doing their work. It is looking now like the senate may have to take 2 to 5 WEEKS off to allow the Democrat controlled house to catch up."

...but is it Democrats slowing down work in the House?

Surely it takes time to determine, say, how to charge $4 million for a Playboy (so that tax on pornography may replace tax on food), or how to issue death certificates for aborted fetuses (absent their names, birthdates, or Social Security numbers), or how to curtail this doggone homosexual agenda in public schools (before it crops up)???

Yeah, right.

Link...

The Knoxville Museum of Art opens a new exhibition today (Feb.22-May 4), Video Art/3 Visions.

It presents three independent video works that demonstrate the range of expressive and technical possibilities within this thriving art medium. Jenny Perlin, Peter Sarkisian, and Hiraki Sawa are acknowledged masters of electronic media who approach their materials in distinctly different ways with dramatically different results. You can see more work from this exhibiton and others that are going at the KMA by visiting their page on Art Museum Touring.com (Link...)

Sherrie

Sorry I didn't post this here sooner, but you still have a week. Besides most writers always have something in process that just needs a quick polish. Especially note that there's a free contest for high school poets. Thanks, pgs

The Knoxville Writers’ Guild is offering more than $1,200 in prizes for four contests in fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction, Including a poetry contest exclusively for high school students, Awards Chair Pam Strickland announced.

The deadline for the contests is Feb. 29. Winners of the contests will be announced in early to mid-April and honored at the Guild’s annual gala the afternoon of Saturday, April 26. First, second and third place prizes for each of the contests are $150, $100, and $50, respectively.

The East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists is having a workshop for citizens and journalists on "Open Records – Open Meetings: How to get records & get into meetings," 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 6, in the Shiloh Room of the University Center. See the following press release for more details.

I thought the most amusing part of one of Stacey Campfield's recent proposals was that university faculty and staff should be able to go armed if the head of their instutions requests that they do so. I wonder if Peterson would ask the UT faculty senate to go armed? Maybe Mark Harmon and Lumpy Lambert will both be carriers.

There is a concert in town through tomorrow targetting kids that includes country music, a magician and Army exhibits. It was supposed to go to some schools but I think that since they closed kids can go to Sat's show free. It seems to be more or less a military recruiting tool called something like the "my real life tour." Between this and the Graham hype its getting to be a bit much. Knoxville has enough Hummers and mega churches as it is. I am glad to see the Knoxville Jazz Fest will be here the same wknd in April as Graham, something to take the edge off.

Number of words spoken in last night's debate:

Clinton: 4631
Obama: 6298

Obama was right to dismiss the silliness of Hillary's "plagiarism" charge. Imagine Hillary borrowing lines from her husband's 1992 campaign and from John Edwards.

Oh wait, she did.

Hillary needs to grow up and find some better issues.

minor update: and another thing. Whenever these candidates go into attack mode like this, don't you think they ought to be darn sure they've never committed the __fill in the blank__ atrocity they are accusing the other one of?

How do you think Jane Cowen-Fletcher feels about Hillary publishing a book by the same title only two years after Cowen-Fletcher (Scholastic, 1994) vs. Hillary (Simon & Schuster, 1996).

A reader forwarded a GOP "census" sent out to check the pulse of Republican voters. Some of the questions:

Should Republicans do everything they can to prevent liberal Democrats from repealing the USA Patriot Act and other important laws that help our intelligence agencies protect America?

Should we make our fight against the Democrats' massive tax hikes a central part of the 2008 campaign?

Should Republicans oppose Democrat plans for one-size-fits-all, government-run health care?

Do you think Congress should pass the Federal Marriage Amendment, protecting marriage as a union between one man and one woman?

Do you think U.S. troops should have to serve under United Nations' commanders?

Of course, the bottom line question is "will you make a contribution today of $500, $250, $100, $50, $35, or $25?"

My favorite is the health care question. Not a single Democrat running for President (or Congress that I'm aware of) has proposed "government-run health care."

You can read the other reasons why you should be really, REALLY scared of Democrats in the "census" and the cover letter.

Some time ago David Silver started adding a photo to his Flickr page for each public figure who left in order to spend more time with his or her family. The photo set, titled simply 'Gone', is growing in kudzu-like proportions.

This week Rep. Rick Renzi (R- AZ) begins his trip to Gone.

There is a prize if you can name them all.

Barack Obama was right. There have been enough debates. They are starting to sound like broken records and it's making them both look ineffectual.

And they frequently echo each other almost word for word. For example:

Clinton: We need comprehensive immigration reform. I have been for this. I signed on to the first comprehensive bill back in 2004. I've been advocating for it. Tougher, more secure borders -- of course. But let's do it the right way: cracking down on employers, especially once we get to comprehensive immigration reform, who exploit undocumented workers and drive down wages for everyone else.

Obama: So we need comprehensive reform, and that means stronger border security. It means that we are cracking down on employers that are taking advantage of undocumented workers because they can't complain if they're not paid a minimum wage, they can't complain if they're not getting overtime, worker safety laws are not being observed.

And:

Clinton: I think it is important though that English remain our common, unifying language because that brings our country together in a way that we've seen generations of immigrants, coming to our shores, be able to be part of the American experience and pursue the American dream.

Obama: Well, I think it is important that everyone learns English and that we have that process of binding ourselves together as a country. I think that's very important.

(Memo to the candidates: Learning English is already a requirement for citizenship.)

They did manage to differentiate themselves in rehashing the health care debate. But we've heard this over and over. And, sorry, Clinton won that part of the debate. Again.

So it's the same old same old, despite CNN's attempts to start a fight. But at least the goading produced a zinger from Clinton: "...lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in; it's change you can Xerox."

And someone should monitor Limbaugh and O'Reilly today to see if they picked up on this remark by Obama:

"...if we think that meeting with the president is a privilege that has to be earned, I think that reinforces the sense that we stand above the rest of the world at this point in time, and I think that it's important for us, in undoing the damage that has been done over the last seven years, for the president to be willing to take that extra step."

No doubt there's a lot of damage to be undone, but suggesting that we don't stand above the rest of the world is probably not the best election strategy.

P.S. Hillary's problem is that she's not Bill. I thought, even hoped, that she would bring on the wonk to expose Obama's lack of depth on policy. Bill would have had him on the ropes in the first ten seconds of the first round, dizzied by a flurry of facts and figures and reeling from pointed questions that reveal a lack of knowledge that can't be read from a card (watch it sometime). Hillary either doesn't have that ability or she just doesn't know how to go in for the knockout punch.