Ladies and gentlemen, your "pro-life, pro-family" GOP:
Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., allegedly defrauded dozens of pro-life organizations for hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund his first congressional bid, according to an analysis of the recent indictment against him, a state insurance claim and an interview with an insurance lawyer involved in the case.
...
Organizations such as Arizona Right-to-Life, the Hope Crisis Pregnancy Center and the Wickenburg Pregnancy Resource Center paid insurance premiums to Renzi's insurance firm, Renzi & Company, but received notices their insurance coverage was going to be cancelled for nonpayment, according to a 2003 complaint filed with the State of Arizona. The complaint was first reported by the Phoenix New Times.
According to the indictment, Renzi funneled those payments -- totaling more than $400,000 -- through various accounts and finally to his campaign.
Of course, Renzi claims to be adamantly anti-choice:
Renzi has positioned himself as staunchly anti-abortion. "The sanctity of human life should always be upheld, and I will continue to fight for the rights of the unborn in Congress," he said in 2003, as a freshman U.S. representative. In 2006, Renzi received a 100 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee for his voting record.
Ah, Republicans. So passionately devoted to the "sanctity of life", except when there's money involved.
Or, as DHinMI puts it,
Pro-life money funneled away from helping "unborn" babies to helping "unelected" politicians.
smintheus has an interesting question for a particular Republican Senator:
Is McCain still withholding judgment on his former AZ co-chair?
(The answer, as it happens, is that this was apparently the last straw for McCain. Although McCain doesn't actually know if he's stepped down as co-chair, he is no longer "part of the campaign". He won't call on Renzi to resign, though, oddly enough).
Kagro X is slightly more generous to our man Renzi than smintheus (and McCain):
This is insane. The man is innocent.
If he's guilty of anything, he's guilty of loving too much. All he's done is adopt other people's unwanted money. Money that would have been aborted had the liberals had their way!
And special thanks to SusanG, who came up with the title of "Snowflake Dollars" (no two are alike!)
I solicited these responses via email, and now the floor is yours: prove you're funnier than the front-pagers! In the comments, post your snark-tinged observations on Renzi's little fraud. We welcome one-liners like DH's and mine, catchy slogans like SusanG's, extended snark like Kagro's, or whatever you can come up with.
And there will be a special prize for the funniest entry. I will not elaborate.