Since 2005, CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) has put together a report on the Most Corrupt Members of Congress every year. It's a crowded field, what with Rangel up on ethic charges and Vitter and his diapers, but one name did rise to the top:

Roy Blunt is a candidate in the Republican primary for the United States Senate in Missouri. For the last 14 years, Rep. Blunt has served in the U.S. House of Representatives in the state’s 7th congressional district. As a member of Congress, Rep. Blunt came under fire for a variety of issues including employing the same corrupt tactics that forced his mentor, former Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, to resign. Rep. Blunt’s ethical issues were documented in CREW’s 2006 report on the most corrupt members of Congress.

In 2003, Rep. Blunt divorced his wife of 31 years to marry Philip Morris (now Altria) lobbyist Abigail Perlman. Before it was known publicly that Rep. Blunt and Ms. Perlman were dating – and only hours after Rep. Blunt assumed the role of Majority Whip – he tried to secretly insert a provision into Homeland Security legislation that would have benefitted Philip Morris, at the expense of competitors. Notably, Philip Morris/Altria and its subsidiaries contributed at least $217,000 to campaign committees connected to Rep. Blunt from 1996 to 2006.

Also in 2003, Rep. Blunt helped his son, Andrew Blunt, by inserting a provision into the $79 billion emergency appropriation for the war in Iraq to benefit U.S. shippers like United Parcel Service, Inc. and FedEx Corp. Andrew Blunt lobbied on behalf of UPS in Missouri, and UPS and FedEx contributed at least $58,000 to Rep. Blunt from 2001 to 2006.

Family connections have also helped another of Rep. Blunt’s sons, former Missouri Governor Matt Blunt. Gov. Blunt received campaign contributions from nearly three dozen influential Missouri lobbyists and lawyers when he ran for governor of Missouri in 2004, half of whom had provided financial support to his father. Earlier in 2000, when Matt Blunt was running for Secretary of State, Rep. Blunt was involved in an apparent scheme, along with Rep. DeLay, to funnel money through a local party committee into Matt Blunt’s campaign committee.Rep. Blunt and his staff had close connections to convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In June 2003, Mr. Abramoff persuaded then-Majority Leader DeLay to organize a letter, co-signed by then-Speaker Dennis Hastert, then-Whip Blunt, and then-Deputy Whip Eric Cantor, which endorsed a view of gambling law benefitting Mr. Abramoff’s client, the Louisiana Coushatta, by blocking gambling competition by another tribe. Mr. Abramoff had donated $8,500 to Rep. Blunt’s leadership PAC, Rely on Your Beliefs.

There are nine others in the report, which includes Democrats Kendrick Meeks and Alvin Greene, "Independent" Charlie Crist and Tea Party favorites Marco Rubio and JD Hayworth.

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This Week marks the passings of legendary singer, actress and civil rights activist Lena Horne, former Congressman Ike Andrews and Ziegfield Follies dancer Doris E. Travis. In addition, the Pentagon released the names of eleven service members in Iraq and Afghanistan.

US Army SSG Esau S A Gonzales, 30, White Deer, TX

US Marines LCpl Joshua M Davis, 19, Perry, IA

US Marines LCpl Christopher Rangel, 22, San Antonio, TX

US Army CPT Kyle A Comfort, 27, Jacksonville, AL

US Marines Cpl Kurt S Shea, 21, Frederick, MD

US Army SPC Jeremy L Brown, 20, McMinnville, TN

US Marines Cpl Jeffery W Johnson, 21, Tomball, TX

US Marines Sgt Kenneth B May, Jr, 26, Kilgore, TX

US Marines Sgt Donald J Lamar II, 23, Fredericksburg, VA

US Marines Sgt Joshua D Desforges, 23, Ludlow, MA

US Army SPC Denis D Kisseloff, 45, Saint Charles, MO

According to iCasualties, the total number of allied service members killed in Iraq is 4,715; in Afghanistan, 1,764. During this same period, Iraq Body Count lists 40 Iraqi civilian deaths. Al Jazeera reports that between 9 and 15 Afghan civilians were killed in a NATO attack this week, spurring a protest that resulted in one of the protesters being shot by police. In our undeclared war in Pakistan, drone strikes have reportedly killed 15 militants.

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Isn't it interesting that Cokie Roberts spends her Monday morning segment on NPR talking about two admittedly disgraced Democrats who will not be holding their positions come Election Day.

Charlie Rangel and David Patterson are an admitted embarrassment to the Democrats. Rangel, like much of Congress, is long overdue for retirement, and Patterson's made such a mess of his career the sooner gone the better.

But why other than pure partisan hackery would Cokie Roberts spend her Monday morning spot talking about them and not mention that Ensign, Vitter, and Sanford still have jobs? Ensign paid off his mistress's family, Vitter was involved with a prostitute, and Sanford was MIA from his job for days on end. These guys still have the backing of their party? Family values much?

Cokie can always be counted on to live up to the old joke by Driftglass:

Dick Cheney is caught setting kittens on fire and throwing them at homeless veterans. What are the first three words out of Cokie Robert's mouth?

"But the Democrats..."

Next she'll be explaining how much Republican scandals help Mitt Romney. Sigh.

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(h/t Heather)

Orrin Hatch was whining about bipartisanship on Face The Nation Sunday. Are you ready for another David Broder article criticizing the Democrats for not including the teabaggers? Rangel slaps little Orrin for lying about the parameters of the House bill. It's of course the House of Lords that is mucking up the works. The House has delivered a bill the the CBO likes.

HATCH: But it’s become so political. The House bill’s a total partisan bill. The health committee in the Senate, the Senate bill, is a total partisan bill. And our only hope, maybe, is to have Senator Baucus be able to put something together on the Finance Committee in the Senate.

RANGEL: We’ve been dealing with this bill for -- for over six months. And we’ve had hours of hearings. And the fact that it’s not bipartisan is not because we Democrats don’t want to have a bipartisan bill. We don’t have any Republican answers. It’s easy to say what you don’t like about this bill. But it would be far more constructive if we had something to work on. So I’m depending on my friend Orrin Hatch to... (LAUGHTER) ... at least in the Senate, to try to see, is there a Republican bill in the Senate? There certainly isn’t in the House. And it’s just wrong to say that this is a tax on small businesses. We exempt small business from a lot of the penalties. We give tax credits so that they’re able to hire and get people health care in small businesses. This is a tax on less than 1 percent of the wealthiest people in the United States of America. And so to say that this is a penalty on small business just isn’t so. Sure, we wish we had more time.

Hatch is lying again since Sen. Grassley has said he's been working with Baucus on a bill. Maybe he should confer with his own party in the Senate instead of going on TV and crying about being left out. He's a Senator, for the love of God. Maybe he could write another song for us?

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Charlie Rangel has caused quite a stir by bringing up his pet issue: The draft. The wingnuts are flopping around trying to attack Democrats over it, but most of them seem to miss his point. The Poorman has more. Here are just a few of our more prominent members of the CH club.

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It's always fun to see Lawrence O'Donnell get his blood boiling.

Say what you will about Charlie Rangel, but the guy's willing to put his career where his mouth is.

Rep. Charles Rangel, a powerful senior Democrat in Congress and the dean of New York's congressional delegation, said Wednesday that he'll quit Congress if the Democrats don't retake control of the House this year.

"I'm a poker player and I've had good hands all night long. This is all in," Rangel said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I would not put everything on the table if I thought for one minute we would lose." [...]

"Hell, if we don't take back the House, then the Democrats would go down in history, saying that there's no group in the world that can grab defeat from the jaws of victory," Rangel said. "It just seems like America is so frustrated and fed up like I am and if she's not then I may have to say maybe it's me."

It's quite a risk for a guy who's the ranking member on the powerful House Ways & Means Committee, but I love Rangel's attitude.

--Guest Post by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report

Charlie Rangel calls Republicans out on their blatant attempt to hijack a minimum wage increase. God fobid they should actually help the least of us.

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Ezra Klein:

Oh, those Republicans. Tired of being such grinches on the minimum wage, they flipped on the bill, crafting a proposal to raise the wage and rollback the estate tax. The Democrats, it seems to me, have precisely the right response to this gambit...read on

TMV:

How many workers who are cynical about whether the GOP really cares about them will want to vote for a GOPer who voted for an increase in the minimum wage that was shoved through under threat of defeat unless an inheritance tax break was grafted onto it?...read on

fbihop: Welcome to another Holiday season of radical religio/political whining.

Zaphod's Heads: Civilians Shot in Baqouba...Canadians got this story. So far, Americans haven't.

Simply Left Behind: Rangel Rips Darth Cheney

Blue Gal: Open [form] letter to my Congressman

Avenging Angels: C&L welcomes this new progressive site to the fray.
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Avenging Angels: C&L welcomes this new progressive site to the fray.

Rep. Charles Rangel : "The further Bush is away from Washington, the better it is. And sometimes I don't even think Cheney is awake enough to know what's going on. Rumsfeld is the guy in Washington to watch. He's running the country," "Cheney's not awake enough?" reporter Davidson Goldin asked.

"Well, he's a sick man you know," Rangel said. "He's got heart disease, but the disease is not restricted to that part of his body. He grunts a lot, so you never really know what he's thinking."...read on"

Rangel hits Hannity with President Bush's constant use of 9/11 and the trumped up evidence that was used that led to the war.

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Hannity looked hapless trying to say Rangel was spinning conspiracy therories. Alan Colmes brought his best game to the table as he used the Downing Street Memo and the bombing runs before the war started to back up Charlie's claims.

Colmes: We got the same old tired rhetoric. No new information.

Newshounds has the transcripts.